Austria's Fishwraps Are Losing Subscribers Like Crazy

Edit: faithful Catholics are cancelling their subsciptions and going to places like kath.net, kreuz.net, katholisches.net. Anywhere but the old dinosaur, Church-tax supported Liberal dribble.

Every Year Liberal Linz Paper Loses 1,000 Subscriptions

Austrian Church newspapers are losing still a significant part of their readers -- Salzburg's "Rupertsusblatt" has 8.800 subscriptions, Kärntner Kirchenzeitung: 6.300 subscriptions, Wiener Kirchenzeitung: 13.617 subscriptions, Linzer Kirchenzeitung: 33.090 subscriptions

Vienna-Linz (kath.net/rn/pl) The Austrian Church news is continuing to lose a massive part of their readership. These statistics were published in December at the Austrian Circulation Control(ÖAK), where it appeared in four Austrian Church newspapers. In the statistics of the first half-year of 2011, for example, "Sunday", which is the Church newspaper of the Archdiocese of Vienna, it only expected weekly direct sales of 13,617 (of which 8,456 are subscribers). In comparison: „Sunday“ had in its 2nd half of year 2010 still 14,245 editions in direct sales. Further, in the 2nd half year 2009 it iwas 14.984 and a year before that even 15.561 copies!

Even at the especially liberal Linz "Kirchenzeitung" the decline in readers was still more massive. For the first half year 2011 it was still reporting 33.090 editions in direct sales, the current numbers, which were haven't been published yet, could still turn out to be lower. In comparison to that, they were in their 2nd half-year of 2010 still reporting 34,002 in direct sales. In the years before in 2009 34,947 editions and in 2008 another 36,334 editions. For this reason the Linz "Kirchenzeitung", which is almost never read by Catholics true to Rome, have lost approximately 1,000 subscriptions per year. This corresponds to a subscription price of 43.50 Euros which is after all over 40,000 Euros in lost revenues.

Another loss, if even on a lower level, were the number of subscriptions of the Salzburg "Rupertusblatt" reported by the ÖAK. For the Church paper of the Archdiocese of Salzburg, the first half-year of 2011 only reported more than 8,839, a half-year before the circulations in the second half of 2010 was still at 9.011 editions. In the years before in 2009 it was 8,307 subscriptions and 2008 8.425. The Rupertusblatt had wanted for Catholics in the last years for discussion, because they had de facto cancelled the weekly column of the conservative Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun. The outcome were some cancellations by faithful Catholics and still more financial support from the Church-tax payers. This subvention should be number in the six figure range.

Still more drammatic are the numbers of the Diocesan paper of the Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt. For the first half-year in of 2011 it reported 6,366 in direct sales, a half-year previously it was still 6520 copies in 2010. In 2009 the Church news of Gurk-Klagenfurt had 6,655 and in 2008 still 6.801 subscriptions.
Link to kath.net...