Food for the scrap monster?

New numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations show print newspaper readership continues to drop as online readership rises, reports The New York Times.

Print sales of newspapers dropped an aggregate three percent, according to the ABC's newest report. But the bureau's first-ever inclusion of online data shows that overall readership is up.

About half of the 88 papers surveyed by Scarborough Reports, which provided the data, showed rising online visitors more or less balanced out drops in print sales.

Newspaper publishers hope the new figures will show advertisers that online can be just as valuable as print, especially since web readers tend to be in the highly-sought-after younger demographics.

To date, advertisers have assigned less value to online readership than print, a mindset publishers hope changes soon.