The new Audit Bureau of Circulation numbers are out, and both the St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune lost daily circulation.
The Times could point to one "bright" spot; It held flat (an increase of 0.2 percent) in its Sunday circulation compared with one year ago, the ABC Fas-Fax report indicates. Mama Trib fell 4.6 percent in Sunday circ during that same period, losing nearly 13,000 copies.
The daily numbers were abysmal. The Tribune lost 3.6 percent of its circulation Monday-Friday, falling to 204,177 newspapers as of Sept. 30 vs. 211,775 a year ago. The Times fell 3.2 percent on its average M-F circ, to 288,676.
There wasn't any good news in the Fas-Fax report for Florida's biggest dailies. The Bradenton Herald was down 3.3 percent on Sundays but held steady M-F; the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, down daily 2.2 percent, Sunday 5.5 percent; the Miami Herald down an astounding 8.8 percent daily and 9.8 percent on Sunday; Orlando Sentinel down 2.5 percent daily, 4.3 percent Sundays; and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune down 2.4 percent daily, 6 percent Sunday.
(I used the 12-month figures instead of a 6-month analysis favored in national coverage you will see because all Florida dailies lose circ from March to September as the winter visitors leave the state, making the comparison less meaningful than the year-to-year changes.)
If you think that was bad, however, take a gander at the news nationally, where Sunday circ is dropping twice as fast as it was previously. Folks in this industry are freaking out.
I guess I picked the wrong time to get back into print journalism?
This article appears in Oct 25-31, 2006.