Circulation figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations dealt another devestating blow to the US news industry today, revealing that daily circulation figures have fallen 10 per cent in the April-September period, reports AFP.

Average daily circulation for 379 daily newspapers was down 10.62 percent at the end of September to 30.39 million from 34.0 million at the end of September 2008.

Big names have not escaped the brunt of the harsh figures, with USA Today dropping 17.5%, The New York Times losing 7.28% and The Washington Post recording a derease of 6.4%.

Amongst the top 25 US newspapers The San Francisco Chronicle suffered the greatest weekly circulation loss, plummeting a steep 25.82 percent to 251,782 readers.

The only publication to file an increase was The Wall Street Journal, who annouced a modest rise of 0.61% to 2.02 million.

Steadily decreasing circulation figures along with lost advertising revenue and a general cultural shift toward consuming free news online has already led to series of bankrupcies, closures and cutbacks. US newspapers have copped the worst of this with The New York Times recently announcing it would slash 100 jobs, and many other organisations, including CanWest and the Chicago Sun-Times being faced with bankrupcy.

Source: AFP