Music to my ears from the website in Houston "Lone Satr Times." This local rag we have here is as bad as it gets with the exception of the NY and LA Times. Newspaper Circulation Skid Continues by Jeremy Weidenhof | 05/08/2006 2:48 pm | Alert moderator Circulation numbers covering the last six months for newspapers have been released, and it is not pretty for Big Print. NEW YORK The Audit Bureau of Circulations FAS-FAX report released Monday morning reveals that circulation sank again this spring, with circ at major metros declining dramatically. Gains were slight. Slight indeed. The Drudge Report carries the figures for the top twenty papers around the country, and only five reported “gains,” all less than one percent. The paid weekday circulation of the nation’s 20 largest newspapers for the six-month period ending March 31, 2006. 1. USA Today, 2,272,815, up 0.09 percent 2. The Wall Street Journal, 2,049,786, down 1 percent 3. The New York Times, 1,142,464, up 0.5 percent 4. Los Angeles Times, 851,832, down 5.4 percent 5. The Washington Post, 724,242, down 3.7 percent 6. New York Daily News, 708,477, down 3.7 percent 7. New York Post, 673,379, down 0.7 percent 8. Chicago Tribune, 579,079, up 0.9 percent 9. Houston Chronicle, 513,387, down 3.6 percent 10. The Arizona Republic, 438,722, down 2.1 percent 11. Newsday, Long Island, 427,771, down 2.7 percent 12. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., 398,329, up 0.9 percent 13. San Francisco Chronicle, 398,246, down 15.6 percent 14. The Boston Globe, 397,288, down 8.5 percent 15. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 365,011, down 6.7 percent 16. Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, 362,964, down 2.9 percent 17. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 350,457, down 5.1 percent 18. Detroit Free Press, 345,861, up 0.04 percent 19. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 343,163, down 1.6 percent 20. St. Petersburg Times, Florida, 323,031, down 4.4 percent Note that our own hometown Houston Chronicle, the only newspaper in town, experienced a drop of 3.6% to 513,387 copies. How many papers in that reported circulation were free “giveaways” left on unsuspecting driveways across the city we may never know. So who gets the blame for these declining figures? The finger-pointing usually ends up at the internet with little attention paid to product quality. So I pose the question to you dear readers: If the Houston Chronicle were transformed overnight into a balanced newspaper with comprehensive presentation of issues and news instead of reprinted AP or New York Times stories, typos, and political jihads against the Right (how long will they keep that DeLay poll up on the editorial page?), would you subscribe? Let us know what you think.
Mark me up as one of the defectors. I read the paper every morning from the time I was about 10-12 years old until the last year or so. I got so tired of the bias and bad reporting, indluding the sports page, that I dropped to Sunday only, then quit all together. I get a Sunday paper sometimes, it has good ads and a tv schedule, but otherwise I pretty much get my news off the internet and from Fox News. They want to continue to slant the news, that's fine it just won't be with my support.
Young people don't read newspapers nor have land lines (hardwire telephones). Signs of the Times. Who wants to read finanical "news" 15 - 24 hours after market closes? (and others have been trading your stocks for 15 - 24 hours) IF it was conservatives balking at news bias San Francisco and those other blue cities (no pun intended) wouldn't have a decline in readership. I have it on good authority (my brothers-in-law) that no conservatives live in Frisco.
:x I gave up on the daily LA Times when one of their polls showed that Cruz Bustamonte would mop up the floor with Arnold Schwarzenegger by 25% in the recall election of Gay Davis. In fact, that poll showed Arnold finishing third behind BOTH Democrats. A few weeks later, he terminated both of them by a substantial margin, showing the Times poll to be an obvious fraud, which everyone knew anyway. They later admitted that their polling "formula" purposely inflated the numbers of certain Democratic Party target groups in order to make the poll "more accurate." Now I just take the Times on weekends...
Newspapers aren't the only thing that is declining, I have a friend who works for a local TV station and he says that the nightly news is also dead. He said the only news program that has any life is the early morning shows, and that is where they are putting their money. Internet is the reason of course. Terry
Terry... <t>Good point and I suspected this as well. I mean look at the talent on our locals. Really now how long can anyone watch Marvin Zindler and his Roach reports? LOL !! I quit watching the local Houston news years ago.<br/> <br/> JO'Co, your post was good as usual in fact I heard Limbaugh go over the identical information you posted.</t>