More bad news for newspapers

<p>EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the Oakland Tribune. It is the Oakland (Mich.) Press that recorded a 7.3 percent increase in circulation to 68,067. The Tribune’s circulation is 92,794.</p><p>The two-decade erosion in newspaper circulation is looking more like an avalanche, with figures released Monday showing sales down about 10 percent since last year, depressed by rising Internet readership, price increases, recession and papers intentionally shedding unprofitable circulation.</p><p>In the six months ended Sept. 30, for several hundred papers that had reported to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, weekday sales were down 10.6 percent compared to the same period last year, and Sundays were down 7.5 percent, the bureau said. That means that the industry sold about 44 million copies a day -- fewer than at any time since the 1940s.</p><p>The Press Democrat saw its weekday circulation drop at the same pace as the industry average, falling 10.5 percent. It sold 64,237 papers daily during the April-September period, down from 71,789 a year ago.</p><p>"Our numbers reflect some of the dynamics visible elsewhere in the nation: We've increased the reach of our news through our online products and we've been forced to cut circulation in our more remote rural areas when the cost of delivery became prohibitive," Publisher Bruce Kyse said.</p><p>Among the nation's largest newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported the biggest decline, 25.8 percent on weekdays, to about 252,000 -- less than half what it was six years earlier -- and 23 percent on Sundays, to about 307,000. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., and the Dallas Morning News each saw circulation drop more than 22 percent on weekdays, and about 19 percent on Sundays.</p><p>The figures join a list of indicators of the industry's health -- such as advertising and newsroom headcounts -- that, after years of slipping, have accelerated sharply downward, as newspapers face the greatest threat to their survival since The Great Depression. Through the 1990s and into this decade, newspaper circulation was sliding, but by less than 1 percent per year. Then the rate topped 2 percent in 2005, 3 percent in 2007 and 4 percent in 2008.</p><p>A driving factor behind the accelerating decline has been the collapse in advertising, with revenue down 16.6 percent last year and about 28 percent so far this year, according to the Newspaper Association of America. It pushed papers to raise prices to make up some of the loss, driving down sales, and it has forced them to consider charging for access online. Less advertising also has persuaded papers to give up on delivery to customers who live in outlying areas, are intermittent subscribers or have low incomes, judging that they can no longer make money serving such readers.</p><p>As it had warned, USA Today suffered a steep drop in circulation, reflecting the slump in the hotel industry, which distributes most of that paper's copies. USA Today, published only on weekdays by Gannett, fell from almost 2.3 million to 1.9 million, a 17.1 percent fall, losing the top spot in weekday circulation for the first time since the 1990s to the Wall Street Journal.</p><p>The Journal's circulation, just over 2 million, rose 0.6 percent. It is one of a very few papers to sell online subscriptions, which are counted in the circulation total, helping the Journal, which does not publish on Sundays, defy the industrywide circulation decline.</p><p>Meanwhile, the Oakland (Mich.) Press recorded a 7.3 percent increase in subscribers to 68,067 -- one of the biggest percentage gains among the handful of dailies that reported circulation increases.</p>