"Now what's happened since then is that you've seen Murdoch's share of metropolitan daily newspaper circulation as high as it ever was but the share of the total media pie represented by newspapers has got smaller," he said.
The papers, with their easy-to-read format, have helped cut into the print circulation of larger metropolitan papers.
Though he made the NS more respected, influential and loved, especially in metropolitan media circles, Howard saw circulation continue its decline from the peaks of the 1950s.
The paper's print version has the largest circulation of any metropolitan newspaper in the United States, and the second-largest circulation overall, behind The Wall Street Journal.
The drop occurred nearly across the board during the six months that ended Sept. 30; weekday circulation for the largest metropolitan dailies fell anywhere from 1.9percentt for The Washington Post, to 13.6percentt for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, compared with the period a year earlier.
As a result, the Times' circulation in the New York metropolitan area now accounts for only 48% of its overall weekday circulation and 44% of Sunday circulation, down from 58% and 53%, respectively, five years ago.
There was the last great newspaper war in a major metropolitan area, each rival boasting a circulation that ranked it among the ten most significant dailies: the Free Press coming in the morning, more liberal leaning; the News, arriving in the evening, more conservative in orientation.
Given that about half of the Times's circulation is in the New York metropolitan area, a heavily Democratic region, it may be reasonable to guess that a majority of readers vote Democratic.
Sure enough, the Globe's 470,000 circulation is down 5%, but other metropolitan papers have fared worse, even some without a tabloid competitor like the spunky Boston Herald.
In seeking to replicate the success of Hoy, which was founded in 1998 and has an average daily circulation of nearly 94,000 in the New York metropolitan region, Tribune has created virtual clones -- each also called Hoy -- in Chicago and Los Angeles in recent months.
