Slashdot Mirror
Decline In US Newspaper Readership Accelerates
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that US newspaper circulation has hit its lowest level in seven decades, as papers across the country lost 10.6 percent of their paying readers from April through September, compared with a year earlier. Online, newspapers are still a success — but only in readership, not in profit. Ads on newspaper Internet sites sell for pennies on the dollar compared with ads in their ink-on-paper cousins. 'Newspapers have ceased to be a mass medium by any stretch of the imagination,' says Alan D. Mutter, a former journalist and cable television executive who now consults and writes a blog called Reflections of a Newsosaur. According to Mutter only 13 percent of Americans, or about 39 million, now buy a daily newspaper, down from 31 percent in 1940. 'Publishers who think their businesses are going to live or die according to the number of bellybuttons they can deliver probably will see their businesses die,' writes Mutter. 'The smart ones will get busy on Plan B, assuming there is a Plan B and it's not already too late.' Almost without exception, the papers that lost the least readers or even gained readership are the nation's smallest daily newspapers which tend to focus almost all of their limited resources on highly local news that is not covered by larger outside organizations and have a lock on local ad markets."
washington post
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
I'm surprised that web developers have not developed a method to detect Adblock, and then pop-up a page, "You may not access this site while you have ad-blocking software turned on. Please turn it off. Thank you." - After all nobody has to give you access to their site for free.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
My Amish-american neighbors use a lot of horsewhips, although they probably just make them from last years' dead cow skin, rather than buy them.
The Amish are smart. We don't hear them whining about economic collapse, do we? In fact this past year was one of their best years with a huge bumper crop and plenty of excess food to feed their families. They are also exempt from income, SS, and medicare taxes. I wish I was exempt.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I wish I was exempt.
Of course you don't! What you really want to do is pay more so that you can have your health care, income, and retirement completely managed by the federal government. It will make everyone much happier. [/sarcasm]