Rocky Shutdown, by the Numbers
So the Rocky's final daily circ will come in at 210,000, more or less.
That would make it the biggest paper shutdown since the columnist-rich Chicago Daily News, which folded in 1978 with a circulation of about 327,000. The last big shutdown metro that came to my mind was the Dallas Times Herald. Out-maneuvered by Belo and shuttered in 1991, it had about 201,000 when it died.
[Friday addition: The Houston Post, bought by the Hearst-owned Houston Chronicle and closed in 1995, had a daily circ of 287,215. So that it would make it, rather than the Daily News, the last, big paper shut down. Thanks to an alert reader.]
By comparison, as the P.I. waits on the door of death, consider that its circ is down to 127,000.
Oh, and the Chronicle: 370,000 daily and 424,000 Sunday. Ten years ago, daily circulation was 482,000.