The Orange County Register saw weekday circulation fall for the six months through Sept. 30, but by how much depends on how you slice it.
Monday through Friday circulation at the Santa Ana-based daily was off 3.2% from a year earlier, according to the Schaumburg, Ill.-based Audit Bureau of Circulations, which released figures for papers across the country last week.
The Register’s Sunday circulation was off 3.6% from the same period a year earlier.
The falloff is part of an ongoing decline for newspapers. The Register and others have been hit by the national do-not-call list, which hampers telemarketing.
The decline looks worse for Monday through Friday circulation than by another measure, said N. Christian Anderson III, publisher of the Register, part of Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc.
In the past, the paper has reported daily circulation as Monday through Saturday, according to Anderson.
This time around, the Audit Bureau asked for daily numbers for Monday through Friday, with results for Saturday reported separately, he said, though some papers still gave numbers just for the six days.
For Monday through Saturday, the Register’s circulation was off 0.9% for the six months through September.
The paper saw a big jump in Saturday circulation for the period, rising 11.7% to circulation of 311,545.
The boost stems from a promotion offering the paper on Saturdays and Sundays, Anderson said.
The six-day measurement with Sunday on its own is more meaningful to advertisers, he said.
For six-day circulation, the Register fared better than the national average decline. For the five-day period and on Sunday, it was below the average.
Nationally, the largest newspapers saw a 2.6% decline in daily circulation and 3.1% on Sundays.
Monday through Friday circulation at the Los Angeles Times, the region’s largest paper and part of Chicago’s Tribune Co., fell 3.8% in the most recent period.
Saturday was off 2.1%, while Sunday dropped 3.5%.
The Times has daily circulation of 843,432 and 1.2 million on Sundays.
The paper doesn’t break out OC numbers. Advertising industry sources say the Times’ circulation here is about 177,000 daily and 248,000 on Sundays.
Executives at the Register and rival Times have sought to stress readership,how many people are reading a given copy,versus how many people are buying papers.
The Register’s daily readership covers 35% of adults in the county and 45% on Sundays, according to Anderson, citing a report from New York-based Scarborough Research.
That’s the highest since 2002, he said.
“Now that we’re not selling so many subscriptions through telemarketing, we are getting better customers and keeping them longer,” Anderson said.
Among other papers, the San Fernando Valley-based Los Angeles Daily News reported a 5.1% weekday drop through September. Saturday was off 6.7%, while Sunday was down 2.6%.
The Long Beach Press-Telegram fared better than some. Its Monday through Friday circulation was off 1.2% while Saturday was up 2%. Sunday circulation was down 5.4%.
The San Diego Union-Tribune was off 6.2% Monday through Friday, up 9% for Saturday and off 4% for Sunday. The paper is the second largest in Southern California with weekday circulation of 322,000.
The Register emerged as OC’s dominant paper after a long running battle with the Times faded following its acquisition by Tribune in 2000. The Times eliminated an OC edition amid a shift toward regional coverage.
Since then, the Register has gone through its own changes.
In early 2004, some members of the Hoiles family, descendants of Freedom’s founder, sold shares to private equity firms Blackstone Group LP and Providence Equity Partners Inc.
About 58% of the shares held by Hoiles descendents were sold, though the private equity firms are capped at a 49.9% voting stake.
The sale ended feuding among the Hoiles that pitted those who wanted to cash out against those that wanted to retain full family control.
Last month, Freedom named a new chief executive, Scott Flanders, to oversee its more than 30 newspapers and eight TV stations.
He’s set to replace Alan Bell, who’s retiring on Jan. 1. Bell, who came on in 2002, saw Freedom through the delicate share sale.
For the past five years, Flanders has served as an independent director on Freedom’s board. Up until July, he was chief executive of CD and video marketer Columbia House Co., which Blackstone sold to Germany’s Bertelsmann AG.
Earlier, Flanders was president of Macmillan Publishing Ltd., now part of Germany’s Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GMBH.
