The Wall Street Journal remained the paid-circulation leader among daily newspapers for the year ended in March, while The New York Times saw its newsstand sales and home-delivery subscriptions sink by more than 100,000, according to data released yesterday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The ABC stats show that among large daily newspapers, the Journal continued to be the nation’s No. 1 newspaper, both in terms of overall circulation and individually paid circulation, which is defined as newsstand sales and home-delivery subscriptions.
Overall, the Journal’s circulation rose 0.5 percent to nearly 2.09 million, including 414,000 subscribers who get only the newspaper’s digital edition. Individually paid circulation slipped 0.4 percent to nearly 1.49 million. (Like The Post, the Journal is owned by News Corp.)
“I don’t think there is any measure by which they can say we are not the largest newspaper in the country,” said Wall Street Journal Publisher Les Hinton.
Meanwhile, the Times continued to lose readers, recording an 8.5 percent, or nearly 88,000, decline in overall circulation to 1.04 million, and an 11.9 percent drop, or almost 102,300, in individually paid circulation to around 860,400.
The declines come as the Journal has launched Greater New York, a section that will take on the Times by focusing on the New York City market.
The Times’ drop in individually paid circulation marked the second time in a year that circulation in that category had fallen below the 1 million mark. The last time was when ABC released its September 2009 figures, and represents the paper’s lowest circulation level since the 1980s.
The Times does not break out circulation data for the city’s five boroughs, preferring a much broader scope in its so-called Newspaper Designated Market to include New Jersey’s and Connecticut’s suburbs.
However, industry sources said the last known figure for the Gray Lady’s circulation within the city boundaries was 217,000, and that their most recent circ slide had pushed that figure to around 180,000.
A Times spokesman said the decline was partly due to the paper’s “focus on quality circulation and high-retention rates and less on those who ‘churn,'” which refers to customers who are lured into subscriptions with deep discounts and cancel once they’re asked to pay full price.
The spokesman also noted that the year-earlier period was chock-full of news, including the presidential election, financial crisis and inauguration. “We had tough comparisons this March vs. last March,” the spokesman said.
Among the so-called national papers, the second-biggest daily, USA Today, posted the biggest decline, 13.6 percent, to slightly more than 1.8 million.
In the New York market, the Daily News and The Post were in a virtual dead heat again, with the News dropping 11.6 percent to 535,059, while The Post was off 5.9 percent to 525,004. keith.kelly@nypost.com