Newspapers' circulation drops 4.6 percent

The nation's daily newspapers, already finding advertising revenue fall sharply because of the weak economy, saw circulation decline more steeply than last year in the latest reporting period, an auditing agency said today. Average weekday circulation was 38,165,848 in the six-months ending in September, a 4.6 percent decline from 40,022,356 in the same period a year earlier at the 507 papers that reported circulation totals in both periods. The drop was only 2.6 percent in the September 2007 period, compared with September 2006. In the six-month period that ended in March 2008, the decline was 3.6 percent over a year earlier, according to circulation figures that newspapers submitted to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Sunday circulation fell even more, 4.8 percent, to 43,631,646 in the latest period at the 571 papers with comparable totals. The drop was 3.5 percent a year ago and 4.6 percent in the period ending in March. Newspaper circulations are declining largely because of the ongoing migration of readers to the Internet. Despite the drops, newspapers are currently more worried about even steeper, double-digit reductions in advertising revenue caused largely by the weak economy. The Los Angeles Times plans to cut 75 jobs, or 10 percent of its news staff. The cuts are comparable in scale to some that the Times made on the business side of its operations last week.