Times Circulation Drops 4.9%

Los Angeles Times average weekday circulation dropped by about 50,454 papers, or 4.9%, to 972,957 in the six months ended Sept. 30 from the previous year, among the sharpest declines of major metropolitan papers in the country, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported Monday.

The Times blamed the drop on a doubling of the single-copy price to 50 cents in July, company spokeswoman Martha Goldstein said.

Goldstein said The Times has gained significant circulation in the weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that the adverse effect of the price increase has been absorbed by the market.

Other major metropolitan and national papers reported essentially flat circulation. The New York Times gained 1.1% to 1.1 million papers, and USA Today dropped 0.6% to 2,241,677. The Washington Post lost 0.7%. The worst performance was from the Philadelphia Inquirer, which lost 8.8% to 365,154.

Separately, The Times said it has changed the way it reports daily circulation figures, providing Monday-to-Wednesday and Thursday-to-Saturday averages to replace traditional five-day averages.

By that measure, the paper had circulation of 944,303 for Monday through Wednesday and 1,001,610 for Thursday through Saturday. The change is intended to allow advertisers to analyze the company’s circulation more precisely, Times Publisher John Puerner said.