State newspaper sales fall faster than the US average

Circulation at Massachusetts daily newspapers fell faster than the national average over the past year, according to newspaper industry groups.

The Boston Globe's average daily circulation declined 7 percent to about 386,000 in the six months ended Sept. 30, from 414,000 a year earlier.

Daily circulation of the Boston Herald fell 12 percent, to 203,000 from 230,000, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, an independent group that monitors newspaper circulation and readership.

The Globe's Sunday circulation fell 10 percent to 587,000 from 652,000. The Herald's Sunday sales fell 13 percent, to 115,000 from 132,000.

Nationally, daily newspaper circulation fell 2.8 percent, according to an analysis of the audit bureau's data by the Newspaper Association of America. Sunday circulation fell 3.4 percent nationally.

With a technically sophisticated population, Massachusetts is probably seeing readers migrate to Internet news sources faster than the national average, said Lou Ureneck, chairman of Boston University's journalism department.

"It seems ironic that a state with a well-educated, news-hungry population would show reductions in newspaper circulation," Ureneck said. "But this state is an early adopter of technology and highly wired."

Indeed, newspapers across the country are struggling with the transition from print to online media. While online editions are attracting record numbers of readers, they aren't making enough money to offset shrinking circulation and advertising revenues from print.

As a result, some big media companies, such as Tribune Co. of Chicago, are putting papers up for sale to satisfy Wall Street's hunger for bigger profits. In Boston, a local group led by former General Electric Co. chairman Jack Welch and Jack Connors, cofounder of the Boston advertising firm Hill Holliday, is considering a bid to buy the Globe from The New York Times Co.

Average daily newspaper circulation in Massachusetts fell 6 percent overall, as many other Massachusetts dailies reported circulation declines that were steeper than the national average.

Among the largest papers outside of Boston, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester reported an 11 percent decline in average daily circulation. The T&G, like the Globe, is owned by The New York Times Co. Among other big papers in the state, circulation at The Patriot Ledger of Quincy fell 4 percent and was down 3.5 percent at the Republican of Springfield.

At the Globe, spokesman Alfred S. Larkin Jr. attributed some of the paper's circulation loss to the migration to the Internet. In the same six-month period the Globe's circulation was falling, unique visits to the Globe's online affiliate, Boston.com, averaged 3.9 million a month, up from 3.6 million a year earlier.

"The Globe continues to develop a strategy across print and digital media," Larkin said. "We are continuing to try and build our print readership, while building our online viewership."

Other factors contributing to the decline included cancellations following the accidental release early this year of subscribers' credit card information, Larkin said. In addition, the Globe continues to purposely cut its bulk sales, in which single parties, such as a hotels, schools or airlines, buy many papers, typically at a discount, and distribute them, often for free.

Advertisers look less favorably on bulk circulation because it's difficult to track how many papers actually end up in readers' hands and who those readers are.

Larkin said bulk sales reductions accounted for about one-seventh of daily circulation loss and about half of Sunday's decline

Gwen Gage, spokeswoman for the Herald, said the tabloid cut its daily bulk sales by more than 20,000 papers, accounting for about 80 percent of its daily circulation loss. Bulk sales reductions accounted for about one-fourth of the Sunday losses. Still, Gage said, the paper's readership is growing through its website. The number of unique visitors to the site has increased to 2.1 million a month, an increase of about 500,000 from a year earlier.

Robert Gavin can be reached at rgavin@globe.com.