As the Reuters news wire laments, “If there’s one thing that the U.S. public is not giving newspapers, it’s their support.” Specifically, overall paid weekday newspaper circulation for 395 national newspapers in the past six months was down by 7 percent compared with the same period a year ago, as increasing numbers of advertisers “grow disenchanted with newspapers and seek other ways to get their message across to potential customers.”

Yet following the closure of the Rocky Mountain News in February, The Denver Post seems to be holding on. It’s now the 11th largest newspaper in the nation in terms of weekday circulation, according to the Denver Business Journal, selling an average of 371,728 copies a day since grabbing Rocky customers under a joint-closure deal.

Still, that’s 17 percent less circulation than when both newspapers were available, a figure that keeps alive Post publisher Dean Singleton’s hopes of wooing 80 percent of the Rocky’s former readers. But, as Westword’s Michael Roberts points out, “the circulation would have to pretty much stabilize where it is to keep hope alive–and no industry observer I know expects that to happen.”