Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Oregonian Daily Circulation Declines 20% in 2016

[2020 Oregonian paid circulation information is here.]

The Oregonian saw a decline in daily circulation from September 2015, to September 2016, of more than 20%. Annual Statement of Ownership reports show a paid circulation in September 2015, of 121,573. That dropped to 93,232 in September 2016.

Even worse the drop from four years ago, September 2012, has been 57%--down from 219,997.

Sunday paid circulation is also down, but only 6.8% from 2015 (167,458) to 2016 (156,071), but down 23% from 2014 (203,031).

Not good news for the owner Newhouse family which has made controversial decisions to keep their publishing empire afloat. Even worse news for Oregonian employees.

4 comments:

MAX Redline said...

Well, it should be noted that they don't have daily circulation any more, as it's only four days a week for subscribers (and mostly ads, at that). I suspect most of the Sunday subscribers do it just for the ads and coupons. Certainly not for news.

I use an adblocker, and always find it amusing when "Oregon Live" asks me to disable it because "Nobody covers Oregon like we do". They have that right.

T. D. said...

Your posts, Max, about the dumbing down of Oregonian staff, reporters, copy editors, etc., show why even the Oregonian's liberal base isn't paying for their product. At first they were losing conservative readers, but they can't even keep their base in left wing Portland.

As far as I can tell via a Google search, I'm the only one tracking the Oregonian's circulation decline (though, as your posts show, Willamette Week tracks the decline in personnel and professionalism).

MAX Redline said...

I knew they were heading into the toilet when, shortly after Advance bought the paper, they dumped Jack Ohman, TD. I didn't much care for his editorial cartoons (far left), but I could see that they were dumping one of the darlings of the Portland Left. That's stupid.

So Jack got hired by Sacramento Bee to do editorial cartoons, and this year garnered a Pulitzer - which emphasizes how dumb the folks at Advance truly are.

I always appreciate your info on just how rapidly the publication is circling the drain.

T. D. said...

Thanks, Max. And you're right that the decision to let Ohman go shows their lack of understanding of Portland and of the news business. And they've let a lot of other "stars" and competent players go for nothing in return (Mapes, Duin, Sarasohn and Reinhard).

Take the money and run isn't proving to be a good business model. Heh.