That newspapers in the US (but also in other countries) are facing a crisis is not a prime-time news. A lot has been written on Dailies' circulation decline and scandals. Amy Bryer's article in the Denver Business Journal is interesting in that it illustrates the crisis by giving a local example, and by giving out very precise numbers. Amy Bryer reports on the illogical phenomenon that is to say that: "Paid circulation at Denver's two daily newspapers continues to decline while costs for advertisers to reach fewer subscribers has increased. Biannual circulation reports for The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, released by the Schaumburg, Ill.-based Audit Bureau of Circulations on November 1, continued to trend down since the two papers entered a joint operating agreement (JOA) in early 2001. In the most recent report, the combined circulation at the two dailies was 483,740 copies Monday through Friday for the six-month period ending Sept. 30. That's down 11.6 percent from the same period the previous year. Meanwhile, the price for a quarter-page ad to run in both papers has gone up from about $8,300 to $18,400, according to published rates in Editor & Publisher. Partner that increase with the dwindling circulation numbers and the cost-per-thousand subscribers -- a figured used by advertisers to determine how much bang for their buck they're receiving -- has gone up 189 percent."

Source: MSNBC News