• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 21, 2008

For all the gloom in the newspaper industry, total readership--including Web site visitors--is increasing, according to Mediamark Research and Intelligence, which found a 2.1% increase in audience size to 80.6 million between spring 2007 and spring 2008. The survey was performed by MRI for the Newspaper National Network in the top 100 media markets.

Importantly, this figure includes unduplicated online readers, counting each person who reads both newspapers and online just once.

According to the Newspaper Association of America, the total unique audience for newspaper Web sites reached 66.4 million in the first quarter of 2008--12.3% greater than the same period in 2007. Visitors generated 3.1 billion page views in the first quarter, up from 3 billion last year.

In addition to the contribution of newspaper Web sites, NNN cited a couple of other factors to account for the increase in readership. While conceding that circulation has declined over the last decade, NNN noted that publishers only cut marginal--not core--circulation. There has also been a proliferation of free newspapers targeting consumers, like AM New York and Metro. Finally, there has been an increase in pass-along readership.

Newspapers got another bit of much-needed good news last week from a new study by Scarborough Research, which found that Sunday newspapers are still the top source of coupons for things like food and packaged-goods, despite the advent of online coupon services and mobile coupon distribution.

Overall 53% of household get their coupons from the Sunday paper, compared to 35% by mail, 33% from the store itself, and 22% from customer loyalty programs.