Cox selling Palm Beach Post, Austin American-Statesman

Austin metro population is a little bigger than two million people. Doctor says daily circulation in Austin is 51,000 and Sunday circulation is 79,000. Cox says digital circulation is 17,000 while Doctor says it is 3,000. I don't understand the methodological differences but either this is a stunning lack of market penetration.

 

Wikipedia says that in 2013 Austin had daily circulation of 130,000 and Sunday of 184,000. Now it is 51,000 and 79,000. So that is a 60% circulation drop in five years for daily and 57% for Sunday in the fastest growing large metro region in the country. My God.

 

I figured the numbers in Austin were bad, but that is simply astounding. It makes some sense that print circulation fell after the paper started printing off-site a few years ago and went to super-early deadlines (can't even get most Longhorns football and basketball games in print now). But if there was a push to get readers to migrate to the digital edition, it obviously was a major fail.

And just think about what those numbers will be like down the road if GateHouse does, indeed, buy the paper and starts slicing and dicing.

 

The quality of the paper also started to drop slowly but surely when they went to the shared copy desk in 2012. It's not that readers would necessarily object to a bad headline or some typos, but the shared deal limited what the paper could or would do each night.

 

I'm sure the ridiculously early deadlines had much more of an effect on the subscription drops than did the shared copy desk. If you don't have Longhorns and high school football coverage the next day, you're giving the readers less of a reason to pick up your paper.

 

Great post. Newspapers with these type deadlines are meant for the boomers who simply have to read the local paper. These circ drops are about right. You are printing basically for the folks who will find something in there readable with their coffee, whether it's an old local column, the edit page or something. And they survive by running ads from hearing aid companies. Very sad and such poor business decisions have been made. Austin would still be successful if they had blanket coverage of Longhorns and preps.

 

According to the Columbus Dispatch, Austin is being sold to Gatehouse. So we have a winner? And a loser. It makes sense because of design hub but gah

 

BREAKING: American-Statesman being sold to GateHouse in $47.5M deal

 

Worst possible news, outside of folding altogether. The Austin newsroom put out a great paper.

 

Seems like it sold for a good price. Is this a good sign for newspapers? They are still worth a lot of money?

 

Gee, you'd think instead of paying millions for seemingly every newspaper in the country, Gatehouse would add some employees or provide for some well overdue raises for its current shops.

Oh. Right.

It's Gatehouse (And Gannett. And others)

Nevermind.

 

It is a bad sign. Remember, Gatehouse is a liquidator. The fact that Hearst, which owns San Antonio and Houston, did not come up with 48 million dollars for a paper in a metropolitan area with a population of two million speaks volumes.