Print circulation at The Olympian fell by 8.2 percent during the period to 27,023, according figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations and Scarborough Research.
Most Western Washington newspapers saw circulation declines during the latest period. The News Tribune in Tacoma reported a Monday-through-Friday print circulation decline of 14.8 percent to 90,546 in the six months ending in September.
Later today I'll update the numbers for the McClatchy papers I have so far.
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8 comments:
When I started to work at the News Tribune in January 2006, our daily circ numbers were more than 135,000. Losing nearly 45,000 copies per day in less than 4 years is an absolute shame. The paper hasn't spent a dime in advertising their product outside of their own pages in years. I've seen the quality go straight downhill in the last 4 years. Too bad.
Very nice McClatchy SPIN via the article's title, for those who won't read only the title and not minutia.
"Olympian readership up, circulation down"
Things must be looking up for the Olympian, the economy is getting better, and the check is in the mail!
All McClatchy spin is hailing "readership" over paid circ decreases. It's weak and ridiculous and transparent.
The News Tribune has been trying to use telemarketing to get subscribers. I have never had any business relationship with them and am on the Do Not Call list and they called me anyway.
I sent them a e-nastygram and reported them to the Do Not Call violation site.
There's no other way to go but drastically cut staff and try to make ends meet with just an online product. Advertisers are not going to pony up enough cash to keep current staff sizes paid and happy. This economy dictates you must make smart buys in media. Business can't afford to waste ad dollars.
There is a viable alternative to cutting staff. Just lower your profit margins to a reasonable number, say 8 - 10 percent. The stockholders benefit in the good times when profit numbers are 40+ percent, let them own some of the pain in these bad times.
Maybe they could even lower their profit margin to the same 2% range those nasty, capitalistic, greedy health insurance companies are enjoying.
Profits? They will be reporting losses again within 3-6 months.
You can only cut so much before it is impossible to functionally get a product out the door each day.
These new circulation rates will now start affecting ad rates even more dramatically.
That price for a full page ad just got a lot more difficult to justify.
This will affect every newspapers ad sales and cause downward pressure on the rates they can charge.
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