Vienna, Va. – Eight out of 10 (77.8 percent) adults 18+ in the top 50 markets are reading the newspaper over the course of a week (five weekdays plus a Sunday), according to the latest Competitive Media Index data from the Newspaper Association of America. That number translates to more than 115 million readers in those markets, according to the fall 2004 CMI – which is NAA’s analysis of market data from Scarborough Research covering the period from February 2003 to March 2004. NAA also reports that more than half of all adults in the top 50 markets are reading a newspaper every weekday; 52.8 percent reported by the fall 2004 CMI, compared to 53.4 percent in the spring 2004 CMI. Each Sunday, 61.2 percent of adults in those markets read a newspaper, down slightly from 62.0 percent reported in the spring 2004 CMI. The data also shows that 17 million adults in the top 50 markets use their online service to read a newspaper. “Newspapers deliver value to advertisers by providing access to the greatest concentrations of audiences in local markets across the country, and the latest CMI data reinforce that no one does that job better,” said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm.