1974 circulation figures

Was Christmas shopping and found a 1974 almanac in an antique store. Now some newspapers are larger today because their cities have grown or the competition has died. I'm just doing daily, not Sunday.


1974 2007
New York
Daily News 2,092,503 681,415
Times 877,962 1,037,828
Post 630,621 667,119
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Philadelphia
Inquirer 450,293 338,260
Bulletin 611,634 Dead
Daily News 250,697 112,601
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Baltimore
Sun 384,565 232,729
News-American 207,775 Dead
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Washington
Post 535,016 635,087
Star & News 418,126 Dead
Times unborn 95,272
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Cleveland
Plain Dealer 407,916 334,195
Press 382,687 Dead
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Detroit
Free Press 605,216 320,125
News 683,452 198,098
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Chicago
Tribune 735,734 559,404
Sun-Times 567,139 368,062*
Daily News 448,314 Dead
Today 441,775 Dead
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Los Angeles
Times 1,024,721 779,682
Herald-Examiner 474,020 Dead
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*2006 -- 2007 figures not available

 

amazing.

NY Daily News, both Detroit papers, LA Times - chilling numbers.


but the NY Times - somebody is doing something right.

 

Geez, those Detroit numbers are nightmarish. In 30-plus years, Detroit went from two papers with 1.2M circ to two papers with 518K.

 

What would be even more scary would be to look at the numbers from small and midsize papers, because I've a feeling that's where most of us work. At the same time, many of those communities are growing but the papers are dying.

 

I would venture to say that a big chunk of that loss can be pinned on the strike.

 

The creation of USA Today and 24-hour cable news channels has to have the lion's share of the blame. Those are things that no focus groups or redesign or "work smarter not harder" edict will stem.

 

The L.A. Times' numbers are even more disturbing when you consider that a VAST majority of that leakage happened since 1995, not 1974, and in fact probably happened since 2002.

 

Ditto for Philly: Three papers with more than 1.3M circ to two papers totaling 450K.

Wonder, though, what the Internets numbers were for '74?

 

Ask Al Gore -- he'll know.

 

Then there is the NY Daily News, where circ has plummeted more than 1.4M.

That's as much as the DEAD papers in Philadelphia, Washington and Cleveland combined.

(shudder)

 

You forgot the blue font.

The main difference between 1974 and now, I suspect, is that the NYT has successfully projected itself as a "national" newspaper.