Republic Circulation Falls...Yadda Yadda Yadda.

I mentioned in the previous post that the circulation numbers are out again.  Every six months the Audit Bureau of Circulations publishes its report and every six months I point out that the Republic's circulation has fallen another 3 or 4 percent.   Whatever.  I actually try to make Espresso Pundit reasonably interesting and reprinting the exact same story every six months is so...so...print media. 

There were however, a couple of interesting nuggets in today's story.  First, the Republic's circulation was down 4.7 percent, which is a little higher than I would expect considering that Arizona is the fastest growing state in the nation. 

However the real news was reported on one of the blogs that covers Gannett.  Gannett Blog serves the dual purpose of giving Gannett insiders a place to vent and giving Gannett watchers a place to learn.  Here's a comment that was posted earlier today.

"News flash -- don't believe anything you are told from Corporate about the Go4 websites. I can tell you we are hemorrhaging pageviews. There will be a lot of money going back to advertisers because pageviews are not delivering the impressions to advertisers."

I've often mentioned that the web will never replace the advertising dollars that are being lost due to reduced circulation.  That's because  advertisers are only willing to pay about 1/100 as much for a dedicated web reader as compared to an actual subscriber.  But I had at least assumed that traffic at the major media websites would continue to grow. 

Now we hear that web traffic is falling--possibly even faster than print circulation.  Golly, if you work at the paper that must, you know, really suck.

Comments

[Dick Tracy]

Have you ever visited the AZ Republic website? Have you ever tried to find a story there? Then you'll understand the declininng page view numbers.

[NICK]

I wanted to stop receiving the barrage of
advertising E-mail. the website unsubscribe
did not work.

I had to call and state I was fed up with
the Republic ads.

[Special Agent Johnny Utah]

When I left Arizona a month ago to become a former Arizonan (apparently I did NOT become a Texan), I canceled my subscription to the Republic. Naturally. Since then, I've had three phone calls from three different people, begging me to re-start my subscription. I've said to each one, "Okay, on one condition--you arrange for me to give Steve Benson the ass-beating of a lifetime." After being told that's not possible, I say, "Actually, I've moved to Texas, so I really don't need the paper any more." Each time they've been very understanding...and then I get another phone call a week later.

The Republic is like a crazy ex-girlfriend that just can't let go.

[Geoff]

I'm shocked that a newspaper that is offering a free cartoon umbrella to ARIZONA subscribers is having trouble increasing circulation.

[BobH]

I don't know about page views, but on-line revenue growth is slowing across the industry, but this media site says it's primarily the drop in classified:

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=81101&Nid=41833&p=325415

--

Gannett's online revenues grew 6.5% in the first quarter of 2008, down from 16% during the same period last year (Gannett didn't release dollar figures).

The slowdown in online revenue growth is due almost entirely to weakness in online classifieds, which drag down online overall. Newspapers' online classifieds are particularly vulnerable because most newspaper publishers still get the bulk of their online classified revenues from "up-sells" on the print side, offering online ad placement to people placing print classifieds.

With print classifieds in free fall--down 16.5% for the industry overall in 2007--there are simply fewer opportunities for "up-sells" to online. This is compounded by the downturn in the real estate market and declines in recruitment due to economic insecurity.

[jdleslie1]

That comment on declining page views came from a reader, and more comments on that post put some context on it. Nothing empirical on it. I know most everyone on here is anxious for any bad news possible on the Republic and azcentral, but the jury's decidedly out on that one.

[John smith]

Digital revaluation in print media is worked well. Online readership is increased dramatically from the past three years. All the publishers are presenting their publications through online and some publishers are using the companies like http://www.pressmart.net in distribution of publication over the new technology mediums. Digitization becomes the revenue generation tool for all print publishers.