The new Competitive Media Index from the Newspaper Association of America shows newspaper readership numbers holding steady. More than half of all adults in the top 50 markets read a newspaper every
weekday; 55.4% reported by the fall 2002 CMI, compared to 55.5% in the spring 2002 CMI and up from 54.3% a year ago. On Sunday, the fall 2002 CMI discovered that nearly two-thirds (63.6%) of adults in
the top 50 markets read a newspaper, which has also held steady over the past year; 63.7% for fall 2001 and 63.9% in the spring 2002 CMI. Over four Sundays, fully 77.3% of adults read a newspaper. The
industry's readership efforts will continue in January when NAA hosts its first Readership Conference. On the circulation front, an NAA analysis of the Audit Bureau of Circulations' Fas-Fax report for
the period ending Sept. 30, 2002, shows that daily circulation for the papers reporting dipped slightly, by 0.3%. Sunday's reporting papers showed a similar trend, down 0.4%.
