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Published Monday, November 07, 2005 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

DOWN WITH NEWSPAPERS? HARDLY (YET)

Most will interpret today's FAS-FAX circulation reports for daily newspapers and say the end is near. Well, maybe so, maybe not. But to look at all the negative numbers among the top 20 and write the obit for newspapers is well, premature. The main reason so many papers dropped circulation during the reporting period? The Audit Bureau of Circulations remembered the "audit" part in its name and got tougher in what leeway it gave companies in reporting their daily distributions. Note how three of the "top 20" dailies aren't even listed because they misbehaved last year. The old counts for many papers were artificially inflated, so it shouldn't surprise anyone to see these declines. Of course, the long-term outlook remains dubious for any newspaper that doesn't adapt to its readership -- which more and more is getting its news for free, either online or from free dailies. People will still buy or subscribe to a newspaper (heck, they certainly still subscribe to magazines even though their content is available online via other outlets), but you need to keep giving them reasons to do so.