WAN: World newspaper circ up

Despite the global financial crisis, newspaper circulation grew 1.3 percent worldwide in 2008, according to statistics compiled by the World Association of Newspapers.
WAN said global newspaper circulation is close to 540 million. When free dailies are added, circulation in 2008 rose at an even faster pace, by 1.62 percent.
Regionally, newspaper circulation grew almost 7 percent in Africa; 2 percent in South America and almost 3 percent in Asia. Circ fell almost 4 percent in North America, 2.5 percent in Australia and 1.8 percent in Europe.
“The simple fact is that, as a global industry, our printed audience continues to grow,” said Gavin O’Reilly, WAN president and CEO of Independent News and Media.
Predicting the death of newspapers “seems to have reached the level of a new sport,” he said.
“That this doom and gloom about our industry has largely gone unanswered is, to me, the most bizarre case of willful self-mutilation ever in the annals of industry,” he said. “And it continues apace, with commentators failing to look beyond their simple rhetoric and merely joining the chorus that the future is online, online, online, almost to the exclusion of everything else. This is a mistake. This oversimplifies a rather complex issue.”