A faithful reader wrote in to ask about paid circulation at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, so Whispers dug up the newspaper’s publisher’s statement from Sept. 17, 2023.
The U.S. Postal Service requires the document for papers sent through the mail, and the statement showed an average daily circulation for the previous 12 months of about 32,329 copies. The number of copies for the single issue closest to the reporting date — the Sunday, Nov. 17 edition — was 58,701.
The vast majority of those copies were delivered electronically, mostly on iPads supplied to subscribers by the Democrat-Gazette.
The number of paid electronic copies was below 10,000, and the total of paid electronic copies plus paid print copies (including the digital replica copies viewed on iPads) totaled 40,156.
The numbers include the circulation of two sister papers published by Wehco Newspapers Inc. of Little Rock, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Pine Bluff Commercial.
“It’s a long ways from the days back in the 1970s when the Arkansas Gazette’s circulation was well over 200,000 on Sundays,” a retired Gazette veteran said.
Former Publisher Walter E. Hussman Jr. told Arkansas Business a few years ago that the Democrat-Gazette prospered for years after it emerged victorious over the Gazette in the great Little Rock newspaper war of the late 20th century. Its Sunday circulation peaked at about 180,000.
Then came the internet age and a drastic decline in general-interest newspapers nationwide.
“I’ll have to say Walter has maintained a far better newspaper under these circumstances than almost any comparable paper in the country,” the retired journalist said. “That’s the main reason why the country seems to be headed back to the dark ages.”
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