Newspapers Aren't in Free Fall, But Readership is Dropping Fast

AP: Newspaper circulation drops 1.9 percent. Newspaper circulation reached a recent peak in 1984 but has been declining steadily over the past decade as other forms of media compete for the attention of readers, including cable television and the Internet.

Comments

[Alex Krupp]

And the costs to produce a newspaper are falling even faster. It used to be that a person in each town wrote a separate article about the same thing, now there are one or two people in the country who write an article that is syndicated in every paper. Despite that, it still seems like every article I know something about has at least one or two major factual errors.
To be honest I wouldn't really be that upset if the papers started going bankrupt. Only a complete idiot would actually believe anything in a paper that makes its money from corporate sponsors and not readers. Perhaps that's why even the most respected papers are written at a child's reading level.
This plus the fact that the things that are "newsworthy" are the things that almost never happen. If you want to know what's going on in the world then go outside and take a look around, if you want to know about things that will never affect your life then read a newspaper.

[Jim Wilde]

Long before a couple of bloggers were feeding us bs, journalists, advertisers, experts and politicians were doing a mighty fine job of feeding us innumerative bs. According to a recent survey conducted by Jay Leno with the "Jaywalkers" from this year’s "Top Jaywalking Thinkers", they found that 51% of people make shit up, 105% are afraid to look dumb, 67% try too hard to impress others, and 39% belive that 41% of bloggers have hemorrhoids from sitting on their asses. Read more...

[Anspar Jonte]

When I watch network news and read syndicated news articles I feel like I've consuming state-controlled media. Maybe that's not technically true, but the news being furnished simply isn't genuine. But I'm not likely to trust bloggers either because they can be just as easily manipulated or even their identities fabricated.

If bloggers represent the new news media, then we are entering the Age of Rumors.

[Flip]

I only buy the SJ Mercury News for the Fry's Ads. :-)

[Jim M]

Here a newspaper subscription would cost half of what I pay for broadband, and I get all the news I want online. I also get news from many sources, which seems to be a requirement nowadays to get anything remotely accurate. I agree with the above commenter that network, cable, radio, and print news generally feels like state-run media. Sometimes it even is state-run media produced by, or paid for by, the government. Why would I pay for that?

[Anna]

OK, "average daily paid circulation" has declined.

It's not clear to me from the article how much of that decline can be attributed to more cautious accounting. Also, what counts as "paid" now? If the paper offers a subscription bundled with $1/month broadband internet access, does that still count as a "paid" subscription?

[Alex Krupp]

Anna: The NY Times currently makes 24 cents per online reader per month, so if they charged each reader a dollar a month they would quintuple their online revenue, already their fastest growing segment. So I would count that, personally. Plus the fact that online advertising rates are at an all time high right now, so they are probably making even more than when Business Week published those statistics in its January issue.

Remember, just because you don't pay money for it doesn't mean its free...

[Anna]

oops sorry Alex, I wasn't clear.
I meant deals like "buy a regular subscription and we'll give you internet access (to entire web) for $1 more"
i.e. they'll be your ISP