MSM Titantic
Posted on 10/30/2006 11:12:25 AM PST by Grampa Dave
U.S. newspaper circulation falls 2.8 pct - study
Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:49 AM ET
By Robert MacMillan
NEW YORK, Oct 30 (Reuters) - U.S. newspaper circulation fell 2.8 percent as of the end of September, according to industry data released on Monday, highlighting the further migration of readers to the Internet and other media outlets.
Far sharper declines were posted at newspapers seen as potential acquisition targets, including the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, as the industry attempts to reshape itself and counter rival news providers online and elsewhere.
A Newspaper Association of America (NAA) analysis of data on 770 newspapers released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations found that average daily circulation fell 2.8 percent to about 43.8 million copies for the six months ended Sept. 30, compared with the same period a year ago.
Sunday circulation at 619 newspapers included in the report dropped 3.4 percent from a year ago, the NAA said.
The group added that total newspaper readership is rising, when Web site use, sharing papers and other measures are included. The NAA has been emphasizing more positive total readership numbers than paid circulation figures over the last few years.
"Data that measure the expanded audience is precisely what advertisers want to enhance their understanding of consumer use across newspapers' multiple media platforms," said NAA Chief Executive John Sturm. "Simply focusing on print circulation numbers in a vacuum obscures that understanding."
Some of the drop in the audit bureau numbers represents publishers' efforts to reduce the amount of discounted copies and papers delivered in bulk to hotel rooms and similar places that they have considered paid circulation in the past.
Newspaper publishers are coping with a slump in advertising as viewers spend more time on the Internet. Publishers are bulking up their Web presence, but online ad revenue increases have not compensated for the drop-off in print revenue.
TROUBLED PUBLISHERS EYED
Private equity firms and other groups have been eyeing papers run by troubled publishers, such as Tribune Co. . Business and civic leaders have also indicated interest in several of its papers, including the Los Angeles Times, whose circulation fell 8 percent in the past year.
Tribune, which was set to receive offers for a leveraged buyout last Friday, reported additional declines for its Hartford Courant and The Baltimore Sun.
USA Today, the national daily paper published by Gannett Co. Inc. , saw paid average daily circulation slip 1.3 percent to about 2.3 million readers from the six-month period ended in September 2005.
Daily paid circulation at The New York Times fell 3.5 percent to about 1.1 million readers. The New York Times Co.'s Boston Globe saw circulation fall 6.7 percent.
Former General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jack Welch and Boston businessman Jack Connors have discussed buying the paper, according to a spokesman for Connors.
The Wall Street Journal, owned by Dow Jones & Co. Inc. , had a 1.9 percent drop in circulation. The Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition, launched last year to broaden the paper's ad base, reported a 6.7 percent drop in circulation.
Several papers reported higher circulation, including Media General Inc.'s Richmond Times-Dispatch, News Corp.'s New York Post, the New York Daily News, and Gannett's The Indianapolis Star in Indiana and The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky.
I don't even bother to read the Minneapolis Star Trib in Minnesota anymore. Apparently others feel the same way. Same with the Pioneer Press. When will these liberals at the two papers realize their bias BS is costing each of them MONEY in lost wages?
Guess they will never figure it out.
The internet will have killed off the newspaper a century from now.
Not fast enough.
You are probably very typical of most conservative former subscribers for the left wing fishwraps.
A slow/prolonged miserable and expensive demise of the left wing dinosaurs may be the best in the long run.
In reading the editorial pages of the newspapers, one is struck by the impression that the editors believe that by presenting one gross, distorted perspective countered by an opposing gross, distorted perspective -- that somehow, they have presented the truth of the situation, rather than just two grossly distorted perspectives that are not helpful in getting closer to the truth. And that is why credibility and readership is collapsing at unprecedented rates now that there are alternative sources for information -- rather than just “news,” which they and their confederates control.
Real useful information on the other hand, will cause one to stop looking for more information -- until the next “real” need arises -- rather than just the fabrications by editors thinking to create more news, and the demand for “more” news. Obviously, this is a need that no longer exists -- and people need to reserve their attention for actual problems and solutions, and not just those manufactured by the news peddlers to counter the confusion that they themselves are creating.
Society doesn’t need to create any more jobs like that -- of people creating problems just so they can provide the “solution.” There are far more meaningful ways to use one’s life -- than in gossip, propaganda and deliberate distortions. If one can, better just to be completely unaware of all those things. The decline of mass media is the verdict of a clearer thinking audience that they need less of this “entertainment” while focusing their attention on real problems confronting their daily lives, and in solving those problems, rather than just the fabricated, their lives will improve meaningfully and substantially.
That is the problem of mass media in a personalized media world. Publishers can no longer control or insist, that the reader first read the information they want them to see, before they can have the information they want.
Election seasons are particularly perilous times for newspapers -- because of the heightened partisanship, manipulations and deceptions -- that allowed to go unchecked, and even encouraged and inflamed, totally destroys whatever vestiges of credibility these publications have. Of course they can point out that their sources lied -- as though merely reporting them, absolves them of any culpability and malice.
A lot has changed since most of the leaders of mass media received their training and education; many are even past the mandatory retirement age for most other fields -- to remain at the top of their game. So their world of information was shaped fifty years ago -- and they have apparently learned little new since, and think that in maintaining these “old values,” they can cause them to return -- while the rest of society has passed them by, amazed that they should demand that the prerequisite for learning anything new, is to learn everything that is old -- for which they have the monopoly and are the gatekeepers collecting the tolls.
The problem of the old mass media is that they are overrun by the abundance of information -- and not the lack of it.
According to my sister, a long time Boston resident, this decline is a result of the MSM's "extreme bias" IN FAVOR of the "neo-cons". Go figure.
Yea! The good news keeps on a-comin' re: the MSM.
I'm waiting for the NY times to declare chapter 11 just as Pinch moves into his palace.
Thanks for your interesting insights:
"Real useful information on the other hand, will cause one to stop looking for more information -- until the next “real” need arises -- rather than just the fabrications by editors thinking to create more news, and the demand for “more” news. Obviously, this is a need that no longer exists -- and people need to reserve their attention for actual problems and solutions, and not just those manufactured by the news peddlers to counter the confusion that they themselves are creating.
Society doesn’t need to create any more jobs like that -- of people creating problems just so they can provide the “solution.” There are far more meaningful ways to use one’s life -- than in gossip, propaganda and deliberate distortions. If one can, better just to be completely unaware of all those things. The decline of mass media is the verdict of a clearer thinking audience that they need less of this “entertainment” while focusing their attention on real problems confronting their daily lives, and in solving those problems, rather than just the fabricated, their lives will improve meaningfully and substantially."
FYI, enjoyment and ping lists.
Loneliness may become really critical for mentally deranged libs as their MSM chronies fade into the tarpits and trash bins of history.
The third week in a row where several good news stories are written every day.
October surprise?
"According to my sister, a long time Boston resident, this decline is a result of the MSM's "extreme bias" IN FAVOR of the "neo-cons". Go figure."
Would you be mad at me if I suggested that your sister suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome.
U.S. newspaper circulation continues 20-year slide
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May 4, 2005
Circulation figures dropped an average 1.9% among 814 U.S. newspapers according to research by the Newspaper Association of America industry group. The drop, which continues a 20-year declining trend, is one of the worst 6 month slips since a 1984 circulation peak.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.S._newspaper_circulation_continues_20-year_slide
Its going to fall even further....
The rats think if they get power again, they can remove people like Rush, Sean, etc. and get rid of talk shows on the TV cables....and then they can have the airwaves, and newspapers again like they used to, and they believe if they take away the internet we won't be able to know what their doing like we know now....
Isn't it something that people think so much of themselves that they would think in the 'twlight zone'????
If we defeat the MSM and their proxies this November, the market losses so far this year will accelerate into massive blood losses next year.
The number crunchers at Wall Street can read the charts and know what will happen if we beat the MSM proxies next week in the elections.
Distortions (extremism) in any direction -- is just that, and not defensible to arrive at any vision of the truth (moderation). That’s how both the extreme left AND the extreme right are wrong -- which is the only options provided in the newspapers anymore, and the more moderate, voices of calm discernment, are omitted because they are not outrageous sensationalism.
But in fact, the real truth is far more fantastic than they can believe -- but is out of consideration, because it would make a difference -- and the real purpose of this so-called news is to disempower the consumer so that they fill a great need that their advertisers promise to fulfill. So traditional mass media has to create this need -- for the more -- news, products, advertising, etc. It is the ultimate in excess consumerism -- far exceeding any real need.
When times create affluence rather than want -- the inbred and conditioned desire for the more then becomes a great problem -- and why there is over consumption in all its forms, while pretending not to notice. There hasn’t been an appropriate shift to BETTER -- from simply MORE. These leaps, are human progress at work -- but the mind conditioned to the more, cannot see the better. It thinks the fourth scoop of rice will make them better than all the others.
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