U.S. newspaper circulation continued to fall during the six months that ended March 31, according to an audit report issued Monday. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported sharp declines, citing a number of business moves that affected sales.
Nationally, the Audit Bureau of Circulations said, daily circulation fell an average of 8.7 percent compared with the same period a year ago. Sunday sales decreased 6.5 percent. Daily circulation of the AJC dropped 24.7 percent to 195,582; Sunday circulation was down 13.9 percent to 397,925.
The newspaper said it made several decisions in 2009, based on economic necessities, that had the effect of depressing sales. The AJC reduced its “distribution footprint” twice during the year, from 49 counties to 20. In addition, the paper raised its single-copy price from 75 cents to $1.
“The circulation numbers don’t come as a surprise,” AJC Publisher Michael Joseph said in a statement. “They reflect some strategic moves we knew would impact volume. These decisions also allowed us to return to profitability.”
Now that the paper has returned to profitability, the newspaper staff is focusing heavily on improving these numbers. They expect to see improvement in the next audit statement, which is in September, Joseph said.
“We’re also focused on improving the newspaper and listening to readers,” he said. “We’ve created our largest investigative reporting team that has broken several major stories and recently added news content in our main A section.”
Although the declines in circulation industry-wide were lower than during the same period last year, 24 of the top 25 newspapers still reported decreases in circulation. The sole exception was The Wall Street Journal, which also counts online readers in it total because it charges them to view its Web site.
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