media - US papers in free fall

Troublesome news for the traditional newspapers in the US, as they continue to lose readers. That in itself is no news: their circulation has been dropping since 1987, but the recent figures suggest a dramatic increase of that drop. Especially the Los Angeles Times has lost eight percent of its readers over the past six months. Not surprisingly, figures for online visits are going up.
Since China has no official system for auditing the circulation of its papers, I wonder how the situation is in the large cities. Since internet access is at this stage still basically something for the larger cities, changes might be there equally dramatic. In Shanghai I note how the free paper Metro Express has expanded its readership in the early morning, due to the expansion of the subways system and a better circulation. In the past you could only get that paper for a very short time on a limited number of stations, now they seem to be everywhere. I hardly see people reading any of the other papers, although they are still everywhere for sale.