Deseret News posts 2% jump in daily circulation

Daily circulation for the Deseret News is up 2.09 percent, the 14th-highest growth rate among newspapers in the United States, while circulation at the Salt Lake Tribune is down by almost 5 percent, an auditing agency said Monday.

The Deseret News' average daily circulation was 71,133 in the six months ending Sept. 30, up from 69,676 during the same time last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Salt Lake Tribune's daily average was 119,976, down from 126,261 last year.

Sunday circulation for the Deseret News was down slightly, at 75,614 for the six months ending September this year, compared with 76,097 for the same period in 2007. Sunday circulation for the Salt Lake Tribune was 135,912 for the period this year and 143,684 last year.

The combined circulation of the two newspapers was down in the six months ending Sept. 30, from a combined Sunday average circulation of 219,781 last year, to 211,526 this year, the agency said.

Newspaper circulation is watched "because it's closely tied to the advertising and the rates that newspapers can charge their advertisers," said Neal Lulofs, senior vice president of communications and strategic planning at the Chicago-based Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Salt Lake City's two dailies are intertwined in a joint-operating agreement that requires each newspaper to share advertising profits with the other, regardless of which paper sells the most ads. The result is both papers rely on each other to remain profitable, and if one struggles economically, the other will feel the effects.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations is a 100-year-old group that audits the circulation figures of virtually every newspaper in the Untied States with circulation of at least 50,000. About 500 newspapers reported circulation numbers this year and last.

Nationally, circulation at daily newspapers is falling faster than anticipated this year, as readers continue their migration to the Internet and papers narrow their distribution to cut costs.

Combined weekday circulation of all 507 papers that reported circulation totals this year and last year averaged 38.2 million in the six months ending in September, 4.6 percent below 40 million a year earlier. The aggregate drop was only 2.6 percent in the September 2007 period, compared with September 2006.

Sunday circulation fell faster than daily — 4.8 percent, to 43.6 million at the 571 papers with comparable totals. A year ago, Sunday circulation fell 3.5 percent.

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com