Newspaper Circulations Continue to Decline

The bad news about newspapers isn't getting better anytime soon. Today, the Audit Bureau of Circulation released its figures for daily papers, and, as sketched out by the Wall Street Journal's Shira Ovide, the picture is bleak.

According to Ovide, "Nearly two-thirds of the country's 25 largest papers posted declines of 10 percent or more." Gannett's USA Today dropped 17.15 percent, which explains the news from two weeks ago that the Journal overtook it to become to largest circulation paper in America. The New York Times, whose parent company posted better-than-expected (but by no means great) third-quarter earnings last week, fell 7.28 percent. (A full list of the top-25 papers can be found on Editor & Publisher's website.)

Well, at least newspapers can rely on their websites to bring in ad money, right?

Nope.

According to a piece today by the Times' Stephanie Clifford, "Overall, the Internet is the only advertising medium expected to grow this year in the United States, rising 9.2 percent, to $54.1 billion, according to figures released this month by ZenithOptimedia, a media-service firm. Newspaper sites cannot seem to catch that wave."

Clifford's own paper suffered from an online ad decline of 29.6 percent, according to its official earnings report. When newspapers finally hit the bottom, will someone please tweet about it?