New report: Circulation is up at most U.S. newspapers, but it's skyrocketed at the 'Times'

[brooklynite]

Source: Capital New York

Digital subscriptions helped the U.S. newspaper industry bump up its overall circulation by .68 percent, and its Sunday circulation by 5 percent, for the six-month period that ended on March 31, 2012, according to the latest data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, released this morning.

The digital gains were most visible in the results of The New York Times, which saw its total average weekday circulation skyrocket more than 73 percent from March of 2011, when it started charging for unlimited access to its website and e-reader editions.

During the most recent A.B.C. reporting period, the Times had an average weekday print circulation of 779,731 and an average weekday digital circulation of 807,026, making it the third-most widely read weekday paper in the country. The digital total includes both readers who have exclusively purchased digital subscriptions and print subscribers who also visit the website everyday. (Print subscriptions come with unlimited digital access; in other words, some people count twice.) The Times has said that as of March, a combined 454,000 people had purchased digital-only subscriptions to the Times and its sister brand, The International Herald Tribune.

The Times, meanwhile, remains the country's most widely read Sunday paper. Sunday circulation shot up nearly 50 percent year-over-year to an average total of roughly 2.01 million. Times executives have previously cited Sunday home delivery increases as an ancillary benefit of the paper's nascent paid digital model, since a certain pool of former non-subscribers are now opting to buy the weekender edition because it also happens to be the most cost-effective route to unlimited digital access. During the six months accounted for in today's A.B.C. report, Sunday home delivery rose nearly 2 percent, according to the Times.


Read more: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2012/05/5816614/new-report-circulation-most-us-newspapers-its-skyrocketed-times-thanks

[SunSeeker]

1. I guess all those links to newspapers at the HuffPo, etc. are helping circulation?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

2. Maybe, but maybe not. Publishing executives get bonuses which are sometimes pegged according to

the circulation numbers that they report. The circulation numbers are used to determine the amounts that are charged for advertising.

[Kelvin Mace]

3. Then I would say

that the Times numbers are cooked.

[EFerrari]

4. Sure looks like it. n/t

[Dan]

5. I would say that Paul Krugman is one of the main reasons...

fantastic read...

[PDittie]

6. They're counting differently than they have in the past

Can't point to any online evidence, but they're delivering newspapers to conventions and hotels in bulk here in Houston and counting that as paid circulation (which has never been done in the past). You used to could find news like this in the industry's bible, Editor and Publisher. Not going Googling for it right now. Those were the folks who fired Greg Sargent a few years back, if you recall.

NYC has more conventions and hotels than anybody except maybe Vegas...

The NNA (Newspaper Association of America) has also designed some metric -- I don't think it's fair to call it an algorithm -- to measure "digital reach" and augment their market penetration that way. The Houston Chronicle claims 3 million hits a day, and they are putting up more photo slideshows 0f women in lingerie, swimsuits, and cheerleader tryouts than ever. Lots of Java to work around the adblockers in your browser as well.

Poor newspapers (seriously). They pay to collect the news, HuffPo steals it, Huffpo wins a Pulitzer. Karma is being a real bitch to W. R. Hearst's grandchildren and great-grands.