Audience Matters More Than Circulation

Declining newspaper circulation and television viewership seem inevitable, but declining audience is not.

The answer lies in embracing the decline of circulation / viewership and replacing it with online audiences. And the audiences do not have to be local, despite the local focus of the typical newspaper and TV station. Nothing prevents them from building regional or even national niche sites that reuse some of their existing content in a resource-efficient way.

The Newspaper Association of America has embraced the concept of total audience by reporting the combined print and online audiences in each local market. The numbers should give the industry reason for some optimism. (more…)