I never know what to really make of this data, but Scarborough Research has released its 2008 Newspaper Audience Ratings Report. It aims to estimate, based on telephone surveys, how many adults look at a newspaper's print edition or website in a seven-day period. For Nielsen's Southern California market area of 13.1 adults, here's the ranking:

OK, how about comparing the LAT's percentage of its market with the country's best-read papers? Nearly all major papers outperform the Times, some by a significant margin. Ranking after the jump:

Here are selected Tribune-owned papers, West Coast papers, or others:

For comparison, this region's number two paper, the Register, comes in at 12%. Hat tip for the link to Fishbowl LA.

* Also: The Press-Enterprise says it was the only major SoCal paper to add readers.