Weekday newspaper circulations have fallen 2.1 percent in the last six-month reporting period, and Sunday circulation fell 3.1 percent. Not surprisingly, more people are turning to reading online newspaper sites:
Online readership of newspaper sites continues to grow. The NAA pointed to recently released data from Nielsen//NetRatings showing a 5.3 percent increase in the number of people who visited newspaper Web sites in the first quarter of 2007.
While most of the top 20 newspaper circulations fell, it is interesting to see which ones made notable gains. The tabloid-style New York Post jumped a whopping 7.1 percent (as the paper proudly proclaims on its site), and top national papers USA Today and the Wall Street Journal have also seen slight gains.
When I was growing up my Dad had an evening ritual of getting home from work, kicking off his shoes, and diving into the Detroit Free Press. On the contrary, when I get home, I kick off my shoes and fire up my laptop to check my RSS feeds and regular news sites. Same ritual, different medium.
I’m very interested to see how newspapers make the transition to a world that gets the majority of its news online. By incorporating social news-like features, USA Today has had perhaps the most interesting online makeover, and the structure of the newspaper really lends itself well to an online environment in the first place. Will other papers follow suit?
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