The Press: Audits & Other News
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Report on 2024 Newspaper Circulation
The combined average daily circulation of the 25 largest audited newspapers in the US dropped 12.7% in the year to the end of September 2024, new data shows.
The figures, supplied to Press Gazette by the Alliance for Audited Media, show that none of the top US titles increased their circulation compared with the same period in 2023.
The Press Gazette reports on the latest results from the Alliance for Audited Media numbers.
Among the numbers is The Los Angels Times with a print circulation of under 80,000, and that is before the no presidential endorsement kerfuffle. The circulation highlights are those that lost the least number of readers (“six newspapers reported circulation declines of less than 10% in the year”). The Wall Street Journal dropped below 500,000 (“no US newspaper now has a circulation in excess of half a million”). And:
Of the ten papers with the greatest circulation decline seven are owned by investment firm Alden Global Capital…
Of the 25 largest audited in the chart above #25 has a circulation of only 15,000.
Digital has the only good news. But digital isn’t the revenue generator syndicated cartoonists need.
Consolidating Small Newspapers
Smaller newspaper groups serving smaller towns and cities seem to be a buy target.
… The layoffs came just six months after the Herald was taken over by a new owner, Carpenter Media Group. The Mississippi-based group owns and manages more than 270 media properties across the U.S. and Canada. Since last March, Carpenter has made 10 acquisitions, according to its website. Three of those acquired companies are known to have made layoffs.
Since August, Carpenter has announced two acquisitions involving a total of 13 Missouri community newspapers.
Missouri Business Alert reports on community newspapers being purchased by Carpenter and other groups.
Some have bigger ambitions:
Carpenter is not alone in investing in Missouri newspapers in recent months.
Hoffmann Media Group, a subsidiary of the Florida-based conglomerate Hoffmann Family of Companies, has been increasing its stake in Lee Enterprises, the parent company of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Hoffmann Media Group acquired Napa Valley Publishing from Lee in October. The group recently boosted its holding in Lee to 9.74%, and it has a portfolio of 20 news-related properties in the U.S.
More bad news in brief
The Times-Virginian, a weekly newspaper covering Appomattox and Campbell counties and other nearby communities, published its last edition Feb. 5, according to a notice on the newspaper’s website.
As newspapers continue to close across the country, Illinois has been particularly hard hit. The state has lost 86% of its journalists since 2005 — the highest percentage decline in the nation, according to the Medill State of Local News report released in October. Nationally, there was a 60% drop in newspaper journalist positions during that same period.
Illinois’ disproportionately larger number of newspaper job losses is because many of its news organizations are owned by corporate chains…
Digression: Playboy Returns
From the Chicago Star’s Candace Jordan:
I know this new Playboy print magazine has been very hotly anticipated. And I can understand why. When most fans had given up hope of ever seeing another Playboy magazine in print, up pops the Feb. 2025 issue after a five-year hiatus. This major decision to return to print was announced by the Playboy board on Jan. 23, 2025.
The article is headlined: “Playboy magazine is back in print! Would Hefner approve?”
This note in the article tells me No, Hef would not approve:
Sadly, no jokes or cartoons
feature illustration by Yasha Mikolajczak/Missouri Business Alert
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