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Sheila Owens
NAA VP of Strategic Communications
(571) 366-1089
Sheila.Owens@naa.org

November 01, 2004

Vienna, Va. – Eight out of 10 (77.8 percent) adults 18+ in the top 50 markets are reading the newspaper over the course of a week (five weekdays plus a Sunday), according to the latest Competitive Media Index data from the Newspaper Association of America. That number translates to more than 115 million readers in those markets, according to the fall 2004 CMI – which is NAA’s analysis of market data from Scarborough Research covering the period from February 2003 to March 2004.

NAA also reports that more than half of all adults in the top 50 markets are reading a newspaper every weekday; 52.8 percent reported by the fall 2004 CMI, compared to 53.4 percent in the spring 2004 CMI. Each Sunday, 61.2 percent of adults in those markets read a newspaper, down slightly from 62.0 percent reported in the spring 2004 CMI. The data also shows that 17 million adults in the top 50 markets use their online service to read a newspaper.

“Newspapers deliver value to advertisers by providing access to the greatest concentrations of audiences in local markets across the country, and the latest CMI data reinforce that no one does that job better,” said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm.

The following are NAA’s fall 2004 CMI top 10 newspaper markets for adult readership:

Daily:

1. Hartford/New Haven, Conn.  (62.7 percent)

2. Cleveland (62.4 percent)

3. New York  (61.7 percent)

3. Pittsburgh (61.7 percent)

4. Boston (61.4 percent)

5. Philadelphia (61.2 percent)

6. West Palm Beach (61.1 percent)

7. Providence/New Bedford (59.9 percent)

8. Tampa/St. Petersburg/Sarasota (59.4 percent)

9. New Orleans (59.3 percent)

10. Harrisburg/Lancaster/Lebanon/York, Pa.   (58.7 percent)
 

 Sunday:

1. Cleveland (74.4 percent)

2. Tampa/St. Petersburg/Sarasota (72.3 percent)

3. West Palm Beach, Fla. (72.2 percent)

4. Providence/New Bedford (72.0 percent)

5. Pittsburgh (70.5 percent)

6. Hartford/New Haven, Conn. (70.1 percent)

7. Buffalo (68.8 percent)

8. Philadelphia (68.7 percent)

9. Milwaukee (68.5 percent)

10. Norfolk/Portsmouth/Newport News, Va. (67.0 percent)

An NAA analysis of the latest Fas-Fax data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations for the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2004, shows one third of the daily newspapers (281 of 841 newspapers reporting) gained circulation. The average daily circulation for the 841 newspapers reporting for comparable periods was 47,711,751, a drop of 0.9 percent (from 48,163,051) over the same period a year ago. On Sunday, the average circulation for the 662 newspapers reporting for comparable periods was 51,625,241, a drop of 1.5 percent (from 52,392,414) over the same period a year ago.

“These new ABC figures are in range with what we expected,” said John F. Sturm, NAA President and CEO. “Important as it is, circulation is just one component of the information advertisers use to evaluate media purchases. Advertisers have been and continue to be focused primarily on the value that they get from their media spend – the kind of value that our latest CMI report demonstrates.”

The CMI is based on audience research data collected by Scarborough Research, New York City, to which NAA subscribes. Scarborough, a leading media/market research firm, measures 75 DMAs (including the top 50). Scarborough collects data via telephone interview and a mailed consumer survey booklet and seven-day TV diary. Scarborough collected fieldwork for Release One 2004 from February 2003 through March 2004.

NAA is a nonprofit organization representing the $55 billion newspaper industry and more than 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. Most NAA members are daily newspapers, accounting for 87 percent of the U.S. daily circulation. Headquartered in Tysons Corner (Vienna, Va.), the Association focuses on six key strategic priorities that affect the newspaper industry collectively: marketing, public policy, diversity, industry development, newspaper operations and readership. Information about NAA and the industry may also be found at www.naa.org.

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