The Arizona Daily Star's average weekday circulation from April through September stayed level when compared with the same six-month span last year. Its Saturday circulation increased nearly 6 percent, to 102,058.
But the Star's Sunday circulation for that period dropped about 8 percent, to 135,238, due largely to the Tucson Citizen's issuing its last print edition in May, said Jim Rowley, vice president of circulation for TNI Partners Inc.
Tucson Citizen subscribers received the morning Star on Sundays because the Citizen, the city's afternoon paper, published only six days a week.
"The Citizen closure threw a lot of confusion into the marketplace, and what we're seeing now is slow growth back," Rowley said Monday.
The Star, owned by Lee Enterprises Inc., and the Citizen, owned by Gannett Co. Inc., functioned under a joint operating agreement in which the two newspapers shared operating costs, such as advertising, production and distribution, handled by TNI Partners. The two papers maintained independent newsrooms.
People are also reading…
For the Star, average circulation from April through September on Mondays through Fridays was 93,699, which is even with last year.
When comparing September 2009 to the same month last year, weekday circulation in metropolitan Tucson increased, Rowley said. But it decreased in outlying areas, in part because the Star began cutting routes in rural areas due to delivery costs, he said.
THE NATIONAL ANGLE
The decline in U.S. newspaper circulation is accelerating, The Associated Press reported Monday.
Figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show that average daily circulation at 379 U.S. newspapers dropped 10.6 percent in the April-September period from the same six-month span in 2008. That was greater than the 7.1 percent decline in the October 2008-March 2009 period.
Sunday circulation fell 7.5 percent in the latest six-month span.