Seattle newspapers' circulation keeps falling

Circulation at Seattle's two daily newspapers continued to drop over the past year, according to figures released today.

If there's any good news, it's that the declines aren't as precipitous as a year ago.

Average weekday circulation for the six-month period that ended Sept. 30 dipped 1.3 percent at The Seattle Times and 4.9 percent at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from the same period a year earlier, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The Times weekday circulation for the latest reporting period was 212,691, and the P-I's 126,225, the bureau said.

Circulation of the Sunday newspaper, which is produced almost entirely by The Times but bears the mastheads of both newspapers, dropped 4.1 percent, to 423,275.

A year ago The Times reported a 7 percent slide in weekday circulation compared with the previous year, and the P-I, a 9 percent drop. At the time both papers blamed those declines on one-time moves to cut costs and increase revenues, and predicted circulation soon would begin to level off.

The Seattle papers' falling circulation is part of a national industrywide trend. The total year-over-year loss at all newspapers whose circulations were reported today was 2.8 percent weekdays and 3.4 percent Sundays, according to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), a trade group.

The New York Times' weekday circulation dropped 3.5 percent; The Washington Post's, 3.3 percent; The Los Angeles Times', 8 percent; and the San Francisco Chronicle's, 5.3 percent.

But the NAA also said its analysis indicated the total audience for newspapers is growing as more people read them online.

Other Puget Sound-area dailies also reported weekday circulation declines: 5.7 percent at The (Tacoma) News-Tribune, 3.5 percent at the Kent-based King County Journal and 1.5 percent at The (Everett) Herald.

In Seattle, The Times handles circulation and other business functions for itself and the P-I under a 23-year-old, federally sanctioned joint-operating agreement (JOA). Each newspaper maintains competing news and editorial operations.

An arbitrator is scheduled to decide by next spring a contract dispute between the papers that could result in termination of the JOA, closure of the P-I, or both.

The Hearst Corp., which owns the P-I, says its paper couldn't survive outside the JOA; The Times says it has lost money for six years in a row under the arrangement.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com