Future of newspapers in circulation?!

It's been a long day, but I want to touch briefly on something that I never thought I would develop a passion for: circulation.

During our monthly staff meeting, I had the pleasure of sitting with the VP of circulation for the company. He helped guide me through the day-long, in-depth meeting with ease. Now, I've never been interested in circulation, but some of his guidance must have rubbed off on me.

Following lunch break, he began to give his monthly report and was promptly attacked by a coworker for significant decreases in circulation. I understand where the coworker was coming from; he's worried that we're not doing enough to fight for our subscribers and to continue to support the value of our product. While advertising may keep newspapers afloat, it's circulation that forms the base of the entire industry. No readers, no newspaper.

However, in this case, I disagree.

Declining circulation is just one of the many changes that newspapers will go through as we move into a new age of journalism. Particularly, the future of journalism means lower circulation than we've been used to since...well, since forever.

All I've been hearing since I threw myself into this industry is hyperlocal, hyperlocal, hyperlocal. The future of newspapers is hyperlocal. And I'm a complete supporter of this. So it's common sense to assume that the more local we try to make newspapers, the more we're going to need to start tightening up circulation by pulling out of areas that are beyond each paper's optimum market.

First of all, the more local our coverage gets, the less it will appeal to people the farther from a market you get. One of the company's newspapers in Jacksonville, Fla., was still sending papers to a small rural town in Georgia more than three hours away. People in Vidalia don't care about what's happening in Jacksonville. They care about what's happening in their own area. I haven't researched Vidalia enough to determine how well its newspaper serves its readers, but I suspect that if it decides to go hyperlocal as well, Vidalia will be even less inclined to purchase a Jacksonville paper. We finally pulled circulation from Vidalia, but there are still people who want to hang on to that kind of dead-weight circulation. The fact of the matter is, if people aren't reading the paper, why provide it?

Secondly, with the economy taking a downturn, it's no longer efficient to send newspapers in trucks for hours out into the field. Gas prices are skyrocketing along with newsprint. It just makes sense. Pull in circulation. Print fewer papers. You'll use less gas and less newsprint, but still be able to maintain a tight-knit community through a credible journalism product.

And the final factor to consider in this circulation roundabout is the push for online journalism. The more we develop online, the more available news will become for people who don't live directly within the market without the cost of sending them a print product. Pretty soon, online coverage will be completely local and totally in-demand. People will be begging for more video coverage of their child's soccer games or audio clips of their high school's marching band. This will bring in not just local viewers, but grandparents and talent seekers and all kinds of viewers from around the world. "Circulation" may need to add a new component: page views.

To sum it all up, decline in circulation is healthy, natural and necessary. It is my firm belief that circulation in every paper will continue to decline until each paper reaches its optimal market size.