EDITOR & PUBLISHER: Circulation at many of the country’s largest newspapers continued a steep slide as the Audit Bureau of Circulations Monday morning released the latest figures for the six months ending September 2009 — proving yet again that the industry can’t shake the dramatic declines that have taken hold over the past several years. On a comparable basis, ABC reported that for the 379 newspapers filing with the organization, average daily circulation plunged 10.6% to 30,395,652 — one of the most severe drops in overall circulation. The Philadelphia Inquirer currently ranks 10th nationwide with a daily circulation of 361,480. MORE
AUDIT BUREAU: The Philadelphia Inquirer — 361,480 weekday; 499,140 Sunday (down 10.3 percent). The Audit Bureau says the year-ago daily figures are not comparable because the Inquirer’s numbers now are combined with those of the Philadelphia Daily News, which the Inquirer now counts as an edition of the same newspaper. The Daily News doesn’t have a Sunday edition. MORE
ALSO: When 72 million people are looking at your product every month, you might agree that producing it is a 
challenging enterprise. And, in the view of Ryan Davis, an “exciting” one. Davis, newly appointed president of Philly.com, the Web site of Philadelphia Media Holdings, publisher of the Daily News and Inquirer, said that he is looking forward to the challenge. “I’m very excited,” he said. “The Web site is growing by leaps and bounds, and there are so many opportunities to keep it growing.” The growth is reflected in the figures. Page views soared 67 percent in September, to 72 million, compared with 43 million in September ’08. MORE