Recession, state sales tax take toll on newspapers.Times still dominant but Investor's Business Daily Investor's Business Daily (IBD) is a national newspaper in the United States, published Monday through Friday, that covers international business, finance, and the global economy. Founded in 1984 by William O'Neil, its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California. leaps As if the recession wasn't bad enough, newspapers had their own special obstacles to surmount sur·mount tr.v. sur·mount·ed, sur·mount·ing, sur·mounts 1. To overcome (an obstacle, for example); conquer. 2. To ascend to the top of; climb. 3. a. To place something above; top. in 1992. The largest problem was a state-imposed sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. on newspapers which contributed to a 3.3 percent circulation drop for the Business Journal's list of daily newspapers. The combined circulation for The List's 15 newspapers (see page 22) was 2,199,975 a drop of 74,872, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Audit Bureau of Circulation figures and data supplied by the companies. Nine of the newspapers dropped readership with La Opinion's 13.5 percent dip the most precipitous on a percentage basis. Investor's Business Daily had the largest gain, adding 42,000 readers. The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Morning daily newspaper. Established in 1881, it was purchased and incorporated in 1884 by Harrison Gray Otis (1837–1917) under The Times-Mirror Co. (the hyphen was later dropped from the name). is still the city's kingpin with 1,164,388 daily readers and 1,531,527 on Sunday. The Times was down 6.3 percent daily and 2.8 percent on Sunday. The new tax on newspapers pushed the newsstand price to an unwieldy 38 cents for Monday through Saturday papers in many areas. Laura Morgan, a spokeswoman for The Times, attributed the decline partially to the tax, but there were other factors. "We decided to focus on our core market, Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, , and we cut back circulation in Arizona and Central California Central California can refer to one of several divisions or regions of the U.S state of California:
Additionally, the Times raised home delivery prices for the first time since 1979, which also had a negative circulation impact. Morgan said gains were made in Orange County with a 5.3 percent daily and 9.6 percent Sunday rise. The Daily News, based in Woodland Hills, remains in second place after gaining almost 10,000 readers to 212,001. Publisher David Auger said the addition of a weekly Outdoor section in Sports plus a new women's section on Sunday is having a positive impact. By creating new financial data features and charts that are not available in the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily has been able to soar, according to publisher William O'Neil
O'Neil said, "When we started, the Journal was at 2.4 million and now they are down to 1.8 million. Now 70 percent of our readers don't take the Journal. Busy executives don't have time for both papers." Investor's Business Daily has gone from fourth to third on The List moving ahead of the Long Beach Press Telegram which dropped 6,000 readers. La Opinion's erosion comes despite the abandonment of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. by its chief competitor, Noticias Del Mundo. Noticias closed here to merge with another Sun Yung Moon Spanish-language paper in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . Despite the growing Hispanic population in Los Angeles, La Opinion is the lone Spanish daily, but it was especially vulnerable to the newspaper tax and the Los Angeles riots. La Opinion is largely bought in grocery stores and newsstands and has few subscribers, according to Claudette LaCour, vice president of sales and marketing. More than 200 markets where the paper was sold were either destroyed or damaged during the riots. The tax coupled with a 10 cent price increase to 35 cents also were problematic for La Opinion's readership which is almost 70 percent Mexican emigres. The only newcomer to The List is the Chinese-language daily, Sing Tao based in San Gabriel. Publisher/Editor James Lui targets his newspaper at Hong Kong emigres living in Southern California and Arizona. |
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