Web rolled up into newspaper circulation numbers

Cory Bergman November 5th, 2007

It’s that time of year again when the Audit Bureau of Circulations releases circulation numbers for U.S. newspapers, and as expected, they’re still dropping. The average drop was 2.5 percent for weekdays and 3.5 percent for Sundays over April-September of this year. One of the biggest drops is in Denver: both the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News dropped over 10 percent. You can see the top 25 newpapers here.

But for the first time, you can also roll up internet reach with the newspapers’ physical circulation. The idea is for advertisers to look at combined reach instead of dwelling on the dying side of the business (they’re combining numbers from Nielsen/Netratings, Comscore, Omniture and Scaraborough). While it’s a great idea, the execution side of things is not easy. You need to go here and register to pull a report, and dissecting the numbers isn’t immediately obvious (can you really equate a unique user with a subscriber?) And as a result, I haven’t found any reporting so far that can say if the New York Times, for example, experienced a net gain or loss if you add their internet growth. But the extra data is a big step in the right direction.