SKIRMISHER

The Great Newspaper Die-off has probably begun. If recent circulation figures are any indication, the print media in First World America is folding back its carpet.

MediaLife says on the American situation:

Simply put, fewer Americans are reading daily newspapers, and the pace that they are quitting them shows no sign of slowing down.

The average daily print circulation of 770 reporting newspapers fell to 45.4 million, down 2.5 percent from one year ago, according to an Audit Bureau of Circulation analysis of the six-month period ending March 31. The report, released yesterday, also found that Sunday circulations were down 3.1 percent, from 50 million to 48.5 million for 610 reporting newspapers.

However, major newspapers are beginning a rebirth as multiplatform news companies.

Slate says:

Like the ailing—but much alive—character prematurely tossed onto the meat wagon in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, newspapers are right to shout, “I’m not dead!” In their dying, the best newspapers are plotting—and experiencing—rebirths as multiplatform news companies. They’re building out their Web sites, investing in free daily tabloids, partnering more extensively with radio and TV, sending advertiser-supported news to cell phones, and frantically devising business models to make the new equation work…

As much as people may have given up the newspaper habit, their appetite for news has become insatiable, news companies are learning. The 1.1 million-circulation New York Times served 25 million unique readers in April via its NYTimes.com Web site, according to its own logs. Washingtonpost.com, which serves 80 percent of its audience outside the D.C. area, has made the Washington Post a national newspaper.

But not everybody is going to have what Jack Schafer says an “extended, lucrative death.” Many will simply collapse. But the public’s ever-increasing hunger for information will just feed the birth of newer forms of sources. Down the road, maybe there’s much more money to be gained from things like, for example, cheesy podcasts.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING NEWSPAPER [Slate]

YET ANOTHER SCARY CIRC DIP FOR PAPERS [MediaLife]

Stumble it!