Atlanta paper shrinks its reach again; Lee papers report increasing audience via Web

For the second time in little more than a year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reducing its circulation area, meaning the newspaper will be a shadow of its former self in rural Georgia. "Counties affected in the latest round are mainly in the northwest corner of the state, along the South Carolina border and northeast of the Columbus area," the paper said in a story with no byline. "After the cuts, the AJC will be distributed in 46 Georgia counties and three in North Carolina." Georgia has 159 counties, most of them small and rural.

The newspaper said the cuts would reduce its circulation to 320,200 daily and 487,700 Sunday. In the six months ended March 31, the paper's daily circulation fell 8.5 percent to 326,907, and its Sunday distribution dropped 5 percent to 497,149. "The AJC attributed some of the declines to a previous round of distribution area cutbacks in 2007," its story said. "Prior to that cut, the AJC's distribution area covered almost 200 counties in five states." (Read more)

Amid similar six-month reports at most metropolitan papers, Lee Enterprises Inc. said its 54 dailies "saw growing print and online viewership in March," The Associated Press reported. Many of Lee's papers are small; the dailies' average circulation is under 30,000. The papers and their Web sites "reached 72 percent of adults in their markets last month, up from 68 percent in the prior-year period," according to Wilkerson & Associates, a research firm. (Read more)

UPDATE, July 7: The Times-Picayune of New Orleans has eliminated most of its circulation in Mississippi, about 3,000 subscriptions and single-copy sales, mainly the latter, Joe Strupp reports for Editor & Publisher. The exceptions are 700 or so papers still being distributed in Picayune, in the Mississippi Panhandle less than 50 miles from New Orleans. Circulation Director Phil Ehrhardt said much of the paper's Mississippi circulation was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and had not returned.