Loss of Circulation

Many metropolitan daily newspapers have lost circulation and some have shut down. Why? Any examples? Community newspapers however, especially suburban weeklies, are booming. Why? Any examples?

Recently, metropolitan daily newspapers have lost circulation because people are starting to get their news on the internet. When students or professionals open their computers in the morning, most homepages have the top national stories of the day. There is no cost to read stories on the Internet, and they can be updated at a moment's notice. There is much less of a need for metropolitan papers. With less readership, advertisers have been moving away from newspapers and moving on to the internet. The mass majority of of a newspaper's income comes from advertising. The New York Times has announced cut-backs and layoffs of reporters because of a lack of money. A few examples of the decline can be seen in the circulation drops of the Miami Herald at 5.5% with a 10.1% drop on Sundays, The Washington Post lost 3.4% of readers, and The Los Angeles Times lost 4.2% of readers.

Community papers that cover smaller areas are booming because of readers that have read the town paper for years. These faithful readers continue coming back to the paper that they have relied on for years. Also, the Internet does not display the news for such small areas. So, most local news must be obtained from reading the local paper. Because of the large readership, local businesses advertise in the paper. this has kept the smaller metropolitan papers going strong.

Image Provided by

Statistics from