This brief article focuses on Daily Circulation for performance analysis. The Circulation Figures come from annual ABC reports from 2004 to 2008.

Industry targeted business and finance newspapers – IBD, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times are outperforming the industry. All three grew print circulation in the last 3 years and all three are focused on delivering specific financial information to their readers. (note, IBD and FT are off this chart both having USA circulation figures of about 150,000 daily)

More than anything these newspapers have also figured out how to “monetized its audience into paying for high-margin services. IBD generates approximately $10 million in annual revenue from its seminar business.” as reported recently in TheBigMoney. FT and WSJ also run conferences.

Demographically targeted newspapers – The New York Post and New York Daily News have outperformed the industry as a whole. Both are widely read by commuters in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut tri-state area. Whether these papers are profitable is questionable, but the reader interest cannot be denied.

USA Today serves a unique market with their hotel and airport distribution model. It is outperforming the market to date.

The previous newspapers have outperformed the newspaper industry circulation figures as a whole. This indicate that their readers find the content and format has value even operating in the internet paradigm.

General Interest Newspapers on the other hand are failing quite spectacularly, seemingly with no end in sight. Circulation declines for these papers indicate that their content and/or format is nearly valueless in the internet paradigm.

Click Chart for Big Image

UPDATE:
Rupert Murdoch Revitalizes The Newspaper Industry -from Newsweek.com  I missed this earlier, “The Journal is larger than it was a year ago, having added four pages to accommodate expanded nonbusiness—primarily international—news. On top of that, there are two more pages of opinion and arts and cultural coverage.”

Related posts:

1. Newspaper Industry Needs Outside Help, Concludes Closed Door Summit!!!
2. Newspaper Publishing Employment Data 2005 to 2008
3. Financial Times Asks Brian Tierney and the Philadelphia Inquirer Some Soft Questions
4. Newspapers Marginalizing Themselves Online
5. The fundamental problem of newspapers on the internet – The Krugman Paradox