Owning a newspaper seems to get less fun every day. As Warren Buffett has said, "Every time someone dies, that is a newspaper reader gone that will not be replaced." According to the Newspaper Association of America's analysis of figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, average daily circulation (Monday-Friday) of newspapers dropped 2.1% for the six months ended March 31st compared with last year, based on data received from 745 newspapers. Average Sunday circulation sank 3.1% among 601 reporting papers.
On the plus side, USA Today was up 0.2% and the Wall Street Journal gained 0.6%. What does this mean for investors in stocks like Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ), and the New York Times (NYSE: NYT)? It didn't seem to stop Rupert Murdoch from his huge bid for Dow Jones today.
Wall Street is an expectations game, and newspapers have had lowly expectations for awhile now. Given how bad they are, I would argue that there might just be opportunity in newspapers.
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