The Salt Lake Tribune's average weekday circulation fell sharply in the latest reporting period, while the Deseret News was one of the top circulation gainers in the country, a newspaper auditing agency said Monday.

Paid circulation of The Tribune averaged 119,976 in the six months ending in September, a 5 percent decline from 126,261 in the same period a year ago, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The number of copies circulated by the News reached 71,133 in the latest period, up 2.1 percent from 69,676, putting the LDS Church-owned paper at No. 14 among the fastest-growing papers, the bureau said.

Sunday readership of The Tribune fell faster than its daily circulation, dropping 5.4 percent to 135,912. A year earlier Sunday stood at 143,684.

Sunday circulation of the News was almost unchanged. Readership declined 0.63 percent to 75,614 from 76,097.

Nationally, the nation's daily papers endured a 4.6 percent daily circulation decline in the period, falling to 38.2 million from 40 million a year earlier.

Sunday readership fell even more, 4.8 percent, to 43.6 million.

Newspaper circulations are declining largely because of the ongoing migration of readers to the Internet. Compounding the problem is a severe fall-off in advertising revenue caused by the weak economy.