Newspaper circulation continues to decline in the US

As alternative media continues to gain respectability and readers go to the Internet for their news, newspaper circulation is declining at a rapid rate with daily papers falling 10 per cent.

With the economy in shambles across the globe, the newspaper industry is suffering in dramatic fashion. Reports released on Monday show that average daily newspaper circulation dropped 10 per cent between April and September, according to the Associated Press. The averages for Sunday newspapers, which measured 562 U.S. publications, were down just under 7.5 per cent. Furthermore, none of the top-25 newspapers made any gains for their Sunday editions, reports Reuters. Due to the growing weakness among the newspaper industry, many bankruptcies, closures and increases in debt are embodying companies such as the New York Times who face an astronomical debt. The report conducted by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) suggests that the only paper to actually show a small Monday to Friday gain was News Corp.’s The Wall Street Journal with 0.61 per cent, which takes over from USA Today. USA Today declined 17.5 per cent. The third-largest newspaper in the United States is The New York Times, however the paper’s circulation, once again, fell to under 7.3 per cent. On average, daily circulation for 379 daily newspapers collectively waned 10.6 per cent by the end of September to 30.39 million, which is down from September 2008 when 34 million newspapers circulated across the country. Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, told AFP that he had been expecting the large declines and that this will continue to happen as media companies transfer from print to online. “We're also looking at a period that reflects the economy itself being down. A lot of people are out of work, cutting back here and there, and at least some of these are going to be cutting newspaper purchases.” Some companies are thriving as major competitors go out of business such as The Denver Post and The Seattle Times, which all made considerable circulation gains, according to The New York Times. On Monday morning, when the report was published, media analysts and pundits blamed the Internet, the recession, reader’s interest, budget cuts and a variety of other reasons. Yet, no one questioned the content.