AJC circ drops 24.7 percent MORE, quality of sports section drops 2,470 percent

Saw this buried in a story on the bottom of page A8. I'd love to know what their circulation was a few years ago. This just covers the past six months so no excuses about no longer delivering to certain counties, like the past few times they've announced their readership has plummeted.

"Daily circulation of the AJC dropped 24.7 percent, to 195,582; Sunday circulation was down 13.9 percent, to 397,925."

Under 200K? Wow. I will say this: It reads like a 50K sports section these days. Gamers, notebooks, columns and a whole bunch of wire. They actually has 6 mostly open pages today (other than the strip ad on the front), which makes it one of the bigger weekday sections they've had. I think the centerpiece is the Hawks. I say "I think" because the photo is 2 columns, the same size as the other one on the page, to go with a prep baseball feature.

They had a stringer at UGA-Georgia Tech baseball game (in Atlanta). Another stringer wrote what they call the "cover story" (on the topic everyone's talking about in Atlanta — Kennesaw State lacrosse). Another stringer wrote the prep soccer previews.

Talladega wire centerpiece yesterday. Also a wire story on the cover on a local guy winning a PGA event.

No way any section has fallen harder than this one. The rest of the paper's about the same it's been as far as staff byline counts and space. Sports clearly just doesn't matter to them anymore. It's sad.

 

Wow. What's the population of Atlanta?

That paper used to be ridiculous in how far-ranging its coverage was.

 

Re: AJC circ drops 24.7 percent MORE, quality of sports section drops 2,470 perc

You're so wrong, son of Craig James.

There is no 50K sports section I know of that's as bad as the AJC most weekdays. (At least on Sundays, they let Steve Hummer write.)

If you think I'm exaggerating, pick it up on your next layover at Hartsfield.

Hard to believe that this is the same section I judged 3 years ago, when it won the Triple frickin Crown:

http://apse.dallasnews.com/contest/2006/sections/sections.over250.html

 

Amazing, isn't it? Sickening if you remember the work that section did for the 1996 Olympics. Another case of why maybe newspapers deserve to die. You can't try and cheat your customers and prosper, and you shouldn't.

 

About 5.5 million.

It's no coincidence that Atlanta is one of the most wired cities in the US and its major metro paper is basically dead. There's a lot of options on where to get news, and they aren't picking the AJC. Sure, the paper's online numbers are probably higher than some other papers', but not enough to save this sinking ship.

 

Most papers have made colossal drops in quality and circulation in the last 4-5 years.

I would argue the AJC has dropped the most.

 

Maybe it's time for the AJC to kill the weekly print editions, print only on in-depth Sunday pieces and focus on the Web.

Losing a quarter of your readership in one of America's largest cities is terrible.

 

Not too long ago, I would have argued that the AJC was one of the top five sports sections in the country and probably offered the best college coverage of any paper in the country.

 

I passed through Hartsfield today...saw the AJC in a box...damn, the once proud newspaper has been miniaturized, from page width to a mushed-up masthead....couldn't bring myself to put a dollar, or whatever, in the box....walked on.....someone should check the statue of Henry Grady on Marietta, there must be tear stains on the bronze....

 

Agree on all the comments. Damn, has this section... and the entire paper... gone south (no pun intended) in a hurry.