Another huge drop in newspaper circulation

Newspapers drop another 5 percent nationwide in 6 months,
Globe drops 16 percent and newspapers continue circulation collapse

By Walter Brooks

The headline on the story in Wednesday's New York Times attempts to give a positive spin on yet another 5 percent drop in the circulation by America's top 635 dailies;

Newspaper Circulation Falls Broadly but at Slower Pace

That only reminds one of the frog-on-the-log riddle: if a frog starts at one end of a ten foot long log, and with each successive jump (read circulation drop) the frog hops half way along the remaining distance on the log, how many hops does it take before it reaches the Herald - end?

Of course the poor frog never reaches the end, and perhaps daily newspapers won't as well, but the distance to the end of both the log and the industry's circulation is becoming increasingly minuscule.

The biggest shock in the Times story was the fact that The Boston Globe wasn't even on the list of America's 25 largest newspapers.

Globe loses over half it's circulation since Netscape

The Globe - 16 percent
The Herald - 10 percent
The Telegram - 9 percent
The Ledger - 10 percent

It is widely believed that the astronomic growth of the internet and the willingness of younger readers to prefer it, is responsible for the circulation collapse. The first browser widely used by non-geeks was Netscape which was introduced in the mid-1990s and grew very quickly until overtaken by newer and better browsers.

Around that same time The Globe was sold to the NY Times (1993) when the Boston daily had almost a half million paid circulation. In the intervening dozen year The Globe has lost over half its circulation dropping from 472,000 in 1998 to 222,000 today

In The Globe version of the story Wednesday it reports that the Boston Herald's daily circulation fell 10 percent to 124,691 compared with the same period a year ago, and the daily circulation at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette fell 9 percent while The Patriot Ledger of Quincy dropped 10 percent.

Today's bad news for newspapers follows in the dramatic losses reported here just six months ago, see the previous story here.

Newspapers are dead. Long live newspapers, and here comes "i"

Lest you think this spells the end of print media, be advised that just this week a Russian entrpreneur who already owns three British newspapers, launched a new one called "i" which sells for 20 cents.

On October 24 the first quality national British weekday newspaper in almost 25 years was launched and it has captured the imagination of media buyers and provided a refreshing step change from charting falling sales and migrating readers.

Owned and edited by the British daily newspaper The Independent had been the youngest and, until Alexander Lebedev came on board earlier this year, less affluent British newspaper since its launch in 1986, and as such has always been flexible in terms of creativity and providing bespoke solutions for advertisers; i is likely to continue this tradition.