The latest numbers on newspaper circulation are out from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (h/t Media Decoder), and it's still a tough world out there. According to the Newspaper Association of America, total daily newspaper circulation peaked in 1984 at 63.3 million; today it's around 40 million. But that doesn't mean that everyone is dying. The Wall Street Journal is pretty much the only big paper that has consistently added readers in recent years, and there are other papers that are doing well enough online to stay alive. But the ones really under strain are the midsized papers, whose potential readers may expect a degree of original reporting that they no longer have the resources to provide. In any case, here's how the top rankings look:
One notable item is that The Washington Post, which would probably like to consider itself the second-most important paper in the country, has fallen behind the San Jose Mercury News and now has the sixth-highest circulation. Just a few years ago they had about 750,000 paying customers; now they're just over 550,000, and sure to fall further.
Of course, these numbers will mean little once we all have our cloud-brain interfaces synced to our iEye* ocular multimedia projection modules, and all content merges into one endlessly vibrating ocean of knowledge.
*Note: If anyone in Cupertino would like to obtain the name "iEye" from me, please send three iPad 3s and two iPhone 5s care of the American Prospect as a show of good faith before negotiations begin.
