The latest numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations found that newspaper circulation fell by 10.6% from April-September, 2008 to April-September 2009.
Daily Finance says this latest six month drop is the steepest so far in the newspaper industry's ongoing decline.
It's the largest drop recorded so far during the past decade's steady decline in paid readership - a span that has coincided with an explosion of online news sources that don't charge readers for access. Many newspapers also have been reducing delivery to far-flung locales and increasing prices to get more money out of their remaining sales.
The latest decline outstripped a 7.1 percent decrease in the October 2008-March 2009 period and a 4.6 percent decline in last year's April-September window.
Newspapers are faced with both a weak economy and growing competition from online news sources. Some newspapers, like the Christian Science Monitor, have already made the move to go entirely online. Many others will likely join the Monitor over the next several years. Some newspapers like Newsday have decided to start charging for online news. That solution is likely to only work for financial newspapers like the Wall Street Journal. A recession is also the wrong time to try and obtain money from readers.
