Daily paid circulation of the Arizona Daily Star has dropped below 100,000 and the Tucson Citizen now sells less than an average 20,000 copies a day.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations, which tracks circulation data for 507 daily newspapers, released the annual data Oct. 27, showing average paid circulation of the nation’s daily newspapers declined 4.6 percent in the six months ending Sept. 30, compared to a year ago.

In Tucson, the morning Star, owned by Lee Enterprises, reported daily paid circulation was down 5.8 percent to 94,055. The afternoon Citizen, owned by Gannett Co. Inc., was down 14.3 percent to 19,951.

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Circulation for the Sunday Star didn’t fall as much, dropping 2.9 percent to 147,599. That decline was also less than the national average of 571 Sunday newspapers that reported circulation down 4.8 percent in the last year.

To an extent, the circulation decline for the Star can be attributed to the newspaper’s decision to cut back on home deliveries in outlying rural areas this summer when the cost of gas went up.

Outside of Tucson, the state’s largest newspaper, the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, also owned by Gannett, reported daily circulation was down 5.5 percent to 361,333 and Sunday circulation was down 3.7 percent to 463,036. The Republic ranks as the nation’s 11th largest daily newspaper after USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Daily News of New York, New York Post, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle and Newsday on Long Island, N.Y.

Of those largest newspapers, only two reported increased circulation but it was just 0.01 percent. USA Today, the nation’s largest selling newspaper, increased  average circulation by 173 copies a day to 2.29 million. The No. 2 Wall Street Journal was up 117 copies per day to 2.01 million.

Circulation for the rest of the top 10 dailies was down anywhere from 1.9 percent for the Washington Post to as much as 11.7 percent for the Houston Chronicle.

In Arizona, the only daily newspaper reporting increased circulation was Flagstaff’s Arizona Daily Sun, which picked up an average of 171 copies for a daily circulation of 11,292.

More Citizen cuts

Gannett is the nation’s largest publisher of daily newspapers — 83 plus USA Today — and the largest owner of media outlets in Arizona. Besides the Citizen and the Republic, it owns several specialty publications and KPNX and KNAZ, the NBC TV affiliates in Phoenix and Flagstaff, respectively.

Last week, after reporting its quarterly profits were down 32 percent to $158 million — from revenues that were down 9 percent to $1.61 billion — Gannett announced it would institute another round of layoffs. This time, the target is to save about 10 percent on its employee payroll. These will be forced layoffs with each employee getting a severance package of one week’s pay for each year worked.

The head of each Gannett operation has until Nov. 14 to submit a layoff plan. In Tucson, the layoffs are likely to be a combination coming from the Citizen’s newsroom and some from Tucson Newspapers, the production and business entity jointly owned with the Star.

In August, Gannett eliminated 1,000 jobs, 600 of which were through layoffs. Going strictly by numbers of employees, a 10 percent reduction would equate to about 3,000 employees though the company said the percentage is more a budgetary target than an actual number of employees.

Besides the layoffs, Gannett closed KNAZ in Flagstaff in August and now operates it as a repeater station for KPNX in Phoenix. Two weeks ago, a Gannett subsidiary said November’s issue of the Phoenix-based monthly bizAZ magazine will be its last.  General Manager Cami Kaiser said “despite positive developments in readership and revenue base, our core business for bizAZ has eroded. Founded in 1997, bizAZ was acquired in 2005 by Gannett’s Republic Media.

Obama leads endorsements, 2-1

The Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket won the battle for most newspaper endorsements over John McCain-Sarah Palin, 194 to 82, according to a tally last week by the trade publication Editor & Publisher. It’s worth nothing that four years ago John Kerry got more newspaper endorsements than George Bush but it was closer, 213 to 205. Although there are fewer newspapers this time around, the declining total this time around also indicates maybe more are sitting out endorsements this year.

The only Arizona daily newspaper on Editor & Publisher’s list this year was the Arizona Republic, which went for McCain. 

 Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237. Inside Tucson Media appears weekly.