At GateHouse online subscribers make up less than 20 percent of its print circulation,” as the Boston Business Journal reported.īut how do we know the figures offered by Gannett or Gatehouse or even the mighty New York Times ( which does not provide complete digital data to the AAM) have not been inflated? Newspapers typically give free online access to print subscribers and may be tempted to include some of those readers among its digital subscribers, thus counting them twice. In 2019 “Gannett said that its digital-only subscribers totaled 607,000 - less than a third of its print subscribers. In short less than 10% of its subscribers get the print edition.Įven compared to other Gannett papers, the Journal Sentinel has a dreadfully low percentage of digital readers. It recently reported that it has nearly 8.4 million total subscriptions, of which 7.6 million are digital. This is also a demographic that advertisers are less interested in.Ĭompare this to perhaps the most successful daily paper in the nation, the New York Times. Most print readers are older people who are literally dying out. (George Stanley, per usual, did not respond to my request for comment.)Īnd if the true number of digital subscribers is 7,537, that means 89.9% of Journal Sentinel subscribers are getting the print edition. Not to mention that the total circulation of 74,644 for the last 12 months is in line with the figures in three previous annual reports by Gannett. Which makes that figure of 7,537 paid electronic copies look rock solid. The form warns that “anyone who furnishes false or misleading information… or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment)…” The annual statement of ownership and circulation is required by the US Postal Service, and leaves no wiggle room. ![]() And newspapers, he noted, showed an “extreme reluctance” to discuss this discrepancy with him. Whereas the figures for the Alliance for Audited Media, as Edmonds reported, include audited figures for print and figures for digital subscribers that may or may not be audited. Mary Ziegler, who handles the annual statement of ownership for the Madison Cap Times, confirmed that the “electronic copies” are the digital edition of newspapers. A print subscriber with free access to the electronic version of your paper cannot be counted as a paid e-Subscriber.” Is is possible “electronic copies” listed on the statement of ownership are different than digital copies? Here are the instructions from Wisconsin Newspaper Association on filling out this form, which are very explicit: “Remember that paid electronic subscriptions may be included as circulation… A paid subscriber, electronic or print, may only be counted once. Stanley has also offered a glowing picture for JS readers, with a May 2019 column declaring that “our paid digital subscriptions have grown by 170% in the last two years.” And as recently as July Journal Sentinel editor George Stanley told Poynter Institute reporter Rick Edmonds that the JS actually had more than 50,000 digital subscribers. A report citing figures from the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) listed the Journal Sentinel as having not 7,537, but 15,826 digital subscribers as of the third quarter of 2020. In other reports, however, the newspaper has offered higher digital figures. In less than a decade the paper lost 57% of its Sunday readers and 58% of its daily readers. ![]() ![]() ![]() The newspaper’s required “Statement Of Ownership, Management and Circulation” filed on October 1 and buried in the October 7 print edition reported that for the previous 12 months the paper averaged just 67,107 paid print subscribers and 7,537 “paid electronic copies,” for a total of just 74,644 subscribers.Īll told, these are stunningly bad numbers. Its total of daily subscribers, which stood at 175,600 in 2012, had plummeted to 111,251 in 2018, dropping further to 94,171 in 2019 and 83,628 in 2020.īut it still hasn’t bottomed out. And these include both print and digital subscribers. The company’s annual reports provide subscriber data for each of its papers and shows these numbers for the Journal Sentinel: Most of that decline came before the impact of the internet, but the paper’s circulation decline since 2012 has been more drastic and has if anything gotten worse since the paper was bought out by Gannett.
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