Circulation among alternative weeklies was up again in 2005, according to figures from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. The average circulation among all AAN members reached 7.64 million in 2005, an increase from 7.58 million in 2004.1 [1]

Growth in Alternative News Weeklies

Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Member Publications, 1989 - 2005

Design Your Own Chart [2]

Source: Association of Alternative Newsweeklies unpublished data

The industry is still below its all-time peak of 7.79 million in 2001. The recession hurt the weeklies, particularly in the area of national advertising, and some titles folded. But since bottoming out at 7.33 million in 2003, the weeklies have regained upward momentum in circulation.2 [3]

The demographic data for the alternative weekly audience didn’t shift in any dramatic way in 2005, though there were some very small changes recorded in an annual survey by the Alternative Weekly Network, which sells national ads for weeklies. The survey examined readers of 108 different weeklies in 72 different markets. Readers 18 to 24 years old increased to 14.8% in 2005, up from 14.3% in 2004, according to the data. The median age of readers, however, held steady at 40.3 [4]

Alternative Weekly Readership by Age Group

1995 - 2005

Design Your Own Chart [5]

Source: Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, unpublished data

The percentage of weekly readers who were married climbed to 48.2 in 2005, from 46.9 in 2004. And the number of readers with children at home was up to 41.3% from 40%. Both numbers represent high-water marks since 1995, the first year for which survey data were available, and the changes may represent a few trends.4 [6]

The alternative weeklies are well-established papers, entrenched in many communities as more than simply tabloids for the young. As we have mentioned in previous years, weeklies are by no means outsider publications; their readers have an average income of over $51,000 and more than 40% of them have college degrees. And the rising rate of those who are married with children in the house reinforces their broader appeal. The gap between the weeklies’ readers with a “child at home” and the market average has narrowed. In 1995, some 35.4% of such readers had a child at home, and for the market that figure was 42.4% — a difference of 7 percentage points. In 2005, 41.3% of weekly readers had a child at home, while 43.6% of the market did — a difference of only 2.3 points.5 [7]

Those numbers indicate not only that more households in the alternative weekly markets have children, but also that more parents are reading them. That may suggest that readers of the weeklies are not moving away from them as they grow older, but continuing to read the papers. And in coming years that may mean that weeklies will begin reaching out to different advertisers and altering their content to appeal to the older readers.

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