Yes, the Journal Sentinel hasn’t declined as badly as many Gannett papers, but that’s like being located in the higher quarters of a sinking ship. It has lost 81% of its daily readership dropping from 257,599 in 2003 to 48,158. And that number dropped to 47,567 in the October 2023 owner’s statement, meaning we will likely see a further decline in Gannett’s next annual report, which comes out in January 2024.īut even using last January’s Gannett numbers, the JS has lost 83% of its Sunday circulation over the past two decades, dropping from 434,668 in 2003 to 75,061 in 2022. If you average the daily and Sunday circulation it comes very near to the Statement of Ownership, which had the average circulation at 58,798 in 2022. From 2021 to 2022 its Sunday combined (print and digital) circulation dropped from 115,026 to 75,061 and its combined daily circulation dropped from 75,676 to 48,158, The change resulted in a significant decline in the Journal Sentinel’s numbers, though not nearly as bad as for most Gannett papers. Digital subscription numbers are “based on payment, not access,” AAM noted. Free riders clicking on a website would no longer count as digital subscribers, nor would repeated visits by print or digital subscribers. How were such incredible declines possible? “In 2021, AAM worked with publishers and buyers on AAM’s news media committees to revise the rules for digital reporting,” as it website noted. The Detroit Free Press saw its Sunday circulation drop from 896,634 to 103,606 in one year and the Columbus Dispatch saw its daily circulation drop from 137,374 to 35,235. In 2021, for instance, Gannett showed the combined (print and digital) daily circulation for the Journal Sentinel at 75,676, compared to 68,892 on the annual owners statement by the Journal Sentinel.īut in 2022 the combined circulation numbers reported by Gannett dropped drastically for nearly every newspaper the company owned, starting with its flagship paper, USA Today, which saw its daily circulation plummet to 163,036, compared to 781,063 in 2021. Is it possible the numbers include only those who use the “replica” digital edition of the daily paper? No, she noted, the figures include all digital subscribers to the newspaper, whether they choose to read a paper’s replica edition or its website’s display of stories.Īnd yet the numbers seemed different than those reported by Gannett in its annual report listing circulation for all its newspapers. She told Urban Milwaukee that “electronic copies are the digital edition of our newspapers.” Is it possible electronic copies are different than digital copies? Not according to Mary Ziegler, Distribution Office Coordinator for Madison Media Partners, who handles these reports for the Cap Times and Wisconsin State Journal. None of this was reported by the newspaper. The annual statement shows there has been a 33% decline in electronic subscribers, dropping from 7,762 in 2019 to a dismal 5,152 this year. However the story noted that with digital readership included the paper saw a total increase in Sunday and daily readership.īut how was that digital readership measured? Did it include print subscribers who also clicked on the newspaper’s website? Did it count unpaid readers who use it each month till they hit the paywall? The story didn’t say.Įach year those numbers have steadily dropped, to 79,372 average daily circulation in 2020, 68,892 in 2021, 58,798 in 2022 and 47,567 in 2023.Īnd it was not just print subscriptions that were declining. In 2012 the JS reported another big decline in print circulation, of 8.2% for Sundays and 7% for daily circulation. Meanwhile, the Journal Sentinel added a paywall for its online content toward the end of 2011. Its past circulation figures came from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which provided data for many newspapers, and changed its name to the Alliance of Audited Media, or AAM, in 2012, the new name reflecting the growth of other forms of news media. By 2011 it had dropped to 326,262 Sunday and 188,819 daily readers.Īfter this, things began to get more murky and complicated. As the growth of the internet undermined the newspaper industry, the JS saw its readership steadily decline. That was probably the last real increase the paper ever saw.
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