You thought yesterday's circulation numbers were bad? Here is some related, and to me more discouraging, news: The total audience for the typical metro daily's news report, even including online-only readers, is not expanding. In fact, it appears to be contracting.

 

Six months ago the Newspaper Association of America, the Audit Bureau of Circulations and Scarborough Research announced with a flourish a new measure of total reach with 200 initial newspaper participants. The figures were updated yesterday and can be found by registered users in the bowels of ABC's Web site, but none of the sponsoring parties put out a news release this time.

 

You have to suspect that in this instance, no news is bad news. Indeed, a separate Scarborough study, Newspaper Audience Ratings Report 2008 [PDF], released April 22, shows that Web-only readers add just modestly to the news audience of the typical metro daily. And at most papers, that total audience has declined rather than increased since Scarborough's first report in this series a year ago.

The explanation, according to Scarborough senior vice president Gary Meo, is that while online audiences are growing at a healthy pace, the growth is on a much smaller base than print readership. Hence that growth online, even in double digits, can't make up for thousands of lost print readers represented by a few-percentage-point drop in circulation.
 

That echoes the observation I and other analysts have been making for years about online advertising revenues. They are growing at a healthy rate, but it will take a decade or more to make up for the business falling away so quickly from print. The Scarborough reports are the first I have seen that establish the same pattern for news audience.

 

The 2007 and 2008 reports both show that some stars among regional newspaper sites -- Atlanta, Boston and Phoenix -- reach as many as 16 to 18 percent of adults in their designated market areas per week. Penetration of 6 to 10 percent is more typical.

 

But even the stars are adding only 5 to 6 percentage points in unduplicated audience to the print edition's weekly reach. An addition of 1 or 2 percentage points is more common.

 

With a few exceptions (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for one), the 2008 totals for overall audience are down from 2007.

 

Another interpretation of the data is that most local online readers are at least occasional print readers as well. "And that's not necessarily a bad thing," Meo said in a phone interview. Advertisers might want to reach the hybrid reader with the right message both places. "It is an argument we at Scarborough make," Meo said, "but I haven't heard much of it in the industry."

 

That's probably because both the NAA and newspaper companies are sticking to their story that the "total footprint" of all their products on all platforms is expanding. Counting specialized Web sites like those for moms, hyperlocal sites and niche print publications, total audience may be bigger. (And the Scarborough study does not measure the handful of youth-targeted or Spanish language dailies, which do capture additional news audience.)

 

Still, I take these figures as evidence that newspaper organizations are "following their readers online" only if you are talking about those readers who use both platforms regularly.