Where Have All the Readers Gone?

Newspaper circulation across the industry fell almost 3 percent compared to the year before. The Audit Bureau of Circulation reported the drop and in the article “More Readers Trading Newspapers for Web Sites” cited the decline was due to the growing shift of readers to the Internet.

An analysis of 88 major papers found:

...that in the last two years, about half had seen no significant change in combined print and online readership, or showed an increase.

Because newspaper Web sites, unlike their print counterparts, are drawing a lot of young adults the industry is hoping it will have an impression on advertisers. But since advertisers have generally not considered an online reader to be as valuable as a print reader, it remains to be seen what effects the numbers will have.

I think this is an excellent case of going where the money is. Young readers equal advertiser dollars and even though those advertisers may not immediately recognize those readers I think that in years to come it will be hard not to. With more and more newspapers being read online I could see a dramatic change in advertising dollars being shifted from print sources to online sources.