DALLAS, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The Dallas Morning News announced today the release of new readership figures, as provided by Scarborough Research, for the twelve-month period ending February 2008, showing weekly readership of the printed newspaper in the four-county area combined with non-duplicated audiences of dallasnews.com and supplemental targeted products Al Dia and Quick, has risen to 1,756,089, representing a 4% increase compared with the prior year, and a market penetration of more than 65%. During the same period, readership of The Dallas Morning News newspaper alone rose slightly compared with the prior year to 1,524,678.
"We are pleased with the results of our efforts to grow our overall local audience and with our ability to maintain newspaper readership. We have intentionally eliminated the reporting of our bonus day and third-party distribution, plus reduced our deepest-level discounting more than 75%, allowing us to focus on those readers who most value our newspaper and who provide the greatest return to our advertisers," said John McKeon, president and general manager of The Dallas Morning News. "Currently our subscriber churn is at its lowest level in the past two years, reflecting our continued success in improving the quality of our core audience." (Core audience is defined as readers who have been with The Dallas Morning News one year or longer.)
Gains in readership of dallasnews.com have been especially strong with Scarborough reporting past seven-day readership in the four-county area growing to 385,671, representing a 28% increase compared with the prior year and a 24% increase in local market penetration.
"Growing audience in our local market through our newspaper, combined with our website and suite of targeted niche products, provides our advertisers more options and greater flexibility to achieve their marketing goals than ever before," said Jim Moroney, publisher and CEO of The Dallas Morning News.
In addition, The Dallas Morning News, on April 15, 2008, filed with the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), subject to audit, a Publisher's Statement for the six-month period ended March 31, 2008. For this period, the newspaper reported a daily circulation of 368,313 and 520,215 for Sunday, representing a reduction of 10.6% and 7.6%, respectively, compared with the six-month period ended March 31, 2007. During this period, the News intentionally eliminated reporting of all bonus sales and third-party distribution this period, accounting for 3.7 percentage points of the decline weekly and 1.4 percentage points of the decline on Sunday. The resulting declines in circulation, excluding these bonus and third-party reductions, would be 6.9% daily and 6.2% Sunday.
About The Dallas Morning News
Established in 1885, The Dallas Morning News (dallasnews.com) is Texas' leading newspaper and serves a readership of nearly 1.6 million. The newspaper has received eight Pulitzer Prizes since 1986, as well as numerous other industry awards recognizing the quality of its investigative and feature journalism, design and photojournalism. In 2005, The News received the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award for its editorial series calling for mandatory record votes in the Texas legislature, and its Web site, DallasNews.com, also was honored for Web reporting. In 2003, the paper launched the leading Spanish-language daily in North Texas, Al Dia; the standard-setting free weekday paper, Quick; and the nation's first editorial blog. The Dallas Morning News is the flagship newspaper subsidiary of A. H. Belo Corp. , a distinguished news and information company that owns and operates four daily newspapers and 12 associated Web sites.
Contact: Jasmine Bouyer
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