This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Five Utah newspapers increased their weekday and Sunday circulations in the six months through March 31, bucking a nationwide trend of falling circulation numbers according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which tracks newspaper performance.
The reasons why The Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret Morning News, the Ogden Standard-Examiner, the Daily Herald in Provo and The Spectrum in St. George increased their weekday and Sunday circulations by a combined 1.1 percent appear to be a strong economy and a robust economy - plus a dash of mystery.
"It may be that competition is spurring more aggressive circulation campaigns. I don't know. But you could probably clone it and sell it," John Kimball, chief marketing officer at the Newspaper Association of America, said Friday.
Across the United States, weekday circulation at daily newspapers slid 2.1 percent during the October-through-November period, the latest evidence that readers are turning to the Internet and other media for news.
Comparable figures for Sunday show circulation fell 3.1 percent, according to the NAA, which cited numbers that newspapers report to the ABC.
Weekday circulation at 745 U.S. papers was 45 million, down from 45.9 million in the same six-month period a year ago. Similar figures for Sunday circulation weren't immediately available.
In Utah, the combined weekday circulations of the five papers reporting to ABC was 320,639, compared with 317,004 a year earlier. Sunday circulations totaled 355,847, up from 352,044.
"We've been able to maintain pressure and improve some of our sales tactics in how we approach our subscribers, and we continue to try new and different ways to try to sell to them," said Kelly Roberts, senior vice president of circulation for MediaOne, which handles printing, advertising and circulation functions for The Tribune and the Morning News.
Generally, smaller U.S. papers lost fewer subscribers than larger newspapers. While large and small Utah papers didn't lose readers, the trend still appeared to be the same - circulations at smaller papers grew faster than at bigger papers.
"National trends are showing that the small community papers are showing the greatest growth. They are becoming more important because of the local telling of the news that's contained in them," said Michael Fox, executive director of the Utah Press Association.