South Florida dailies' circulation slump continues

The Sun Sentinel has passed the Miami Herald in daily circulation.

New figures for circulation among South Florida's daily newspapers show continued erosion, according to a post on BrowardBeat.com.

BrowardBeat, which is operated by former Sun Sentinel political columnist Buddy Nevins, gave figures for daily circulation as of Sept. 30 and I did the math on the percentage change:

? Sun Sentinel: 140,468, down 5 percent from 147,860 in 2011

? Miami Herald (excluding El Nuevo Herald): 135,533, down 15.5 percent, from 160,505

? Palm Beach Post: 88,231, down 7.3 percent, from 95,620

The Herald's sharp drop means the Sun Sentinel has the region's largest daily circulation. The Herald shows no signs of giving up, though, since it's moving its main office to Doral and decided to keep printing its own newspapers rather than contracting that to the Sun Sentinel, which the Palm Beach Post did.

In 1997, Audit Bureau of Circulations figures showed the Herald had a 272,299 daily circulation, so it's down by 50 percent. The Sun Sentinel used to be 226,591, so it's down 38 percent. The Post used to be 175,495, so it's down 50 percent as well.

The 1997 rankings are given as a PDF on the Burrelles Luce website.

Broward Beat also has the Sunday circulation figures, which is highlighted by the Palm Beach Post actually increasing circulation.

One question is how attractive the dailies are from a business standpoint. While their audiences are bigger than ever because of online readership, online ads sales aren't generally as lucrative as traditional print advertising.

One example: The Tampa Tribune sold for a modest $9.5 million in October. That may have amounted to long-time owner Media General throwing in the towel since the Tribune's main competitor, the Tampa Bay Times, saw its circulation increase 30.4 percent from 240,024 in 2011 to 313,003. One advantage the Times has is being owned by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit journalism organization.

Kevin Gale is editor in chief of the South Florida Business Journal

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vertical_19/~3/DfgeGNJ7oMw/south-florida-dailies-circulation.html

bachelor pad bachelor pad Green Coffee Bean Extract september 11 adam levine 9/11 Memorial Google Docs