All about New York's 29th Congressional District http://www.fighting29th.com/node/4567/atom/feed 2007-11-27T08:18:00-05:00 http://www.fighting29th.com/2007/11/nothing-be-smug-about.html 2007-11-27T08:18:00-05:00 2007-11-27T08:18:00-05:00 Rottenchester

Audit Bureau of Circulations, the D&C's circulation has fallen precipitously in the past year.  Circulation for the daily D&C is down 4.3% in a one-year period.  The Sunday D&C is down 5.6%.

In comparison, the Buffalo News' daily circulation is down 1.1% for the same period.  The Syracuse Post-Standard is down 2.1%.  The Sunday loss for Buffalo is 2%, with Syracuse losing 2.2%.

The newspaper business is going through a rough patch, with readers moving from paper to the Internet.  So it's not surprising that the D&C is losing subscribers.  What is surprising is the size of the loss, more than double that of nearby cities.   The differential must be due to something more than just Internet competition.

One hint at the problem is the other newspapers losing readers.  There are six Gannett newspapers in New York.  Most of them are losing far more readers than the average upstate newspaper.  Circulation loss for the upstate dailies in Elmer's cohort averaged about 3%.  Gannett papers, in general, did much worse than that.  The Westchester Journal-News lost 8.8% of its daily readership in the past year.  Elmira lost 5%, Ithaca lost 6.6%, and Binghamton lost 4.1%.  Only Poughkeepsie beat the average, losing 2.8% year-over-year.

In my next series of posts, I'm going to look at the "Gannett Way" of running a newspaper, and I'll try to understand why it's bad for the public and bad for business.
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Audit Bureau of Circulations, the D&C's circulation has fallen precipitously in the past year.  Circulation for the daily D&C is down 4.3% in a one-year period.  The Sunday D&C is down 5.6%.

In comparison, the Buffalo News' daily circulation is down 1.1% for the same period.  The Syracuse Post-Standard is down 2.1%.  The Sunday loss for Buffalo is 2%, with Syracuse losing 2.2%.

The newspaper business is going through a rough patch, with readers moving from paper to the Internet.  So it's not surprising that the D&C is losing subscribers.  What is surprising is the size of the loss, more than double that of nearby cities.   The differential must be due to something more than just Internet competition.

One hint at the problem is the other newspapers losing readers.  There are six Gannett newspapers in New York.  Most of them are losing far more readers than the average upstate newspaper.  Circulation loss for the upstate dailies in Elmer's cohort averaged about 3%.  Gannett papers, in general, did much worse than that.  The Westchester Journal-News lost 8.8% of its daily readership in the past year.  Elmira lost 5%, Ithaca lost 6.6%, and Binghamton lost 4.1%.  Only Poughkeepsie beat the average, losing 2.8% year-over-year.

In my next series of posts, I'm going to look at the "Gannett Way" of running a newspaper, and I'll try to understand why it's bad for the public and bad for business.
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