A chart of Blade circulation numbers may be viewed here.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) released The Blade’s March 2009 circulation data in a supplemental FAS-FAX report May 11, showing a drop in circulation by 12,000 Sunday newspapers for the Toledo daily since March 2008.

ABC reported The Blade has dropped from 178,274 Sunday circulation in December 2004 to 135,567 in March 2009.

Its combined Monday through Friday numbers have dropped from  131,117 in December 2005 to 110, 728 in March 2009.

The Blade did not appear in the ABC’s original March FAS-FAX report as it had resigned and was in negotiations with the auditors to renew membership. The ABC confirmed May 7 that the newspaper rescinded its resignation.

The Blade’s Director of Circulation, Dick Fuller, did not return repeated phone calls or e-mails by press time.

Media Business Analyst Rick Edmonds, of the Poynter Institute, said when circulation began to drop nationally four years ago, mainly the metropolitan area newspapers felt the effects. Now, medium-sized city newspapers are losing circulation.

“It seems like the percentage decrease keeps getting worse with time,” he said. “The national average was 7 percent daily, and Sunday was roughly the same. That’s compared to 4.5 percent in 2008.”

Edmonds said newspapers will need to trim circulation, eliminate third-party distribution and change subscription fees to stay in business.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 6:43 pm and is filed under Community, Media Watch.
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