Who Subscribes to Newspapers Anyway?

April 28th, 2009 By: Michael van der Galien | Tags: , , , , , , ,
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newspapersYahoo! News reports that all major American newspapers – except for the Wall Street Journal – are losing readers. Fast.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations said Monday that average daily circulation declined 7.1 percent in the October-March period from the same six-month span in 2007-2008. The latest figure represents data from 395 daily U.S. newspapers that reported in both the current and year-ago periods.

The most recent drop was faster than the 4.6 percent fall recorded in the April-September period of 2008, and the 3.6 percent fall recorded in the October 2007-March 2008 span.

Despite losing 7.5 percent of its subscribers, USA Today continues to be America’s largest newspaper. The New York Times‘ daily circulation fell 3.6 percent to 1,039,031, while the Los Angeles Times saw a drop of 6.6 percent to 723,181.

As said, the Wall Street Journal, the second-largest newspaper, was the only one in the top 25 to raise its daily circulation. It increased less than 1 percent to 2,082,189. These days, 1% growth is considered extremely good.

Why do newspapers lose subscribers?

Well, first and foremost: because of the Internet. The Internet enables the public to find news from all parts of the country – and even of the world. Limiting yourself to one newspaper is ludicrous. It only takes a few seconds to surf to several, perhaps even dozens (depending on how much of a news junkie you are).

Secondly, bias. Many newspapers are deemed ‘liberal,’ especially the New York Times suffers from this image. Readers who are not ideological liberals will cancel their subscriptions at the moment they believe that reporting has become slanted.

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