Both YouTube and IFILM complied with the request.

Colbert hosts a satirical current events show on Comedy Central and performed his comedy routine at the correspondent's dinner.

YouTube posted the Colbert video shortly after the dinner ended and received the letter to remove it May 3, according to Julie Supan, senior director of marketing. The Colbert video was viewed 2.7 million times in less than 48 hours, she said.

"Our community was really passionate about it," Supan said.

After removing the video, YouTube received a large number of e-mails asking about the missing clip, Supan said. A misconception that C-SPAN is funded by the government led viewers to complain that the Colbert video should be in the public domain, Supan said.

IFILM declined to comment.

C-SPAN is a private, nonprofit company and holds the copyright on the entire correspondent's dinner.

On May 5, two days after YouTube received C-SPAN's letter, the Colbert video was publicly available through an agreement with Google Video.

Google had been talking with C-SPAN about a partnership before the dinner, according to Jennifer Feikin, director of video and multimedia search partnerships.

C-SPAN said it chose Google as a partner because it agreed to post video of the entire dinner, and to include a link to C-SPAN's Web site.

Average paid circulation at Sunday newspapers fell 3.1 percent versus the same period a year ago, also a comparable decline with the last time circulation tallies were reported, the NAA said.

The figures were based on NAA's analysis of circulation figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, a separate group which reports figures on individual newspapers but not industrywide data.

Despite the declines in paid copies, the NAA also reported Monday that newspaper-run Web sites had an 8 percent increase in viewers in the first quarter. The data from Nielsen/NetRatings found that newspaper Web sites averaged 56 million users in the period, or 37 percent of all online users in the period, the NAA said.

According to Audit Bureau data, Gannett Co.'s USA Today remained the top-selling newspaper with 2,272,815 copies, up 0.09 percent from the same period a year ago; while The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones & Co., was second with 2,049,786, down 1 percent.

Several top newspapers reported significant declines in the period, including Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times, down 5.4 percent at 851,832; The Washington Post, down 3.7 percent at 724,242; the New York Daily News, also down 3.7 percent at 708,477. News Corp.'s New York Post slipped 0.7 percent to 673,379.

The largest slump at a major daily came at the San Francisco Chronicle, where average paid weekday circulation fell 15.6 percent to 398,246 as the newspaper continued to cut back on less desirable circulation such as copies paid for by advertisers and then distributed for free.

Patricia Hoyt, a spokeswoman for the Chronicle, said the cutbacks began at the beginning of last year and involved copies that "advertisers didn't value, were quite costly and essentially had no impact on our readership."

The Chronicle, which is owned by Hearst Corp., reported a similar decline in paid circulation for the previous six-month reporting period that ended last September.

Several other large newspapers also reported declines, including The Boston Globe, down 8.5 percent to 397,288, and The Atlanta Journal- Constitution, down 6.7 percent to 365,011. The Globe is owned by The New York Times Co. and the Journal-Constitution by Cox Enterprises Inc.

Besides USA Today, a handful of other major newspapers reported modest circulation gains in the period: The New York Times, up 0.5 percent at 1,142,464; Tribune Co.'s Chicago Tribune, up 0.9 percent at 579,079; and The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., up 0.9 percent at 398,329. The Star-Ledger is owned by Advance Publications Inc.