It’s no surprise then that over the last year, only one U.S. newspaper of the top 25 most popular in the country saw positive growth in their daily print circulations. Based on data from Press Gazette, this visual stacks up the amount of daily newspapers different U.S. publications dole out and how that’s changed year-over-year.
Extra, Extra – Read All About It
The most widely circulated physical newspaper is the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) by a long shot—sending out almost 700,000 copies a day. But it is important to note that this number is an 11% decrease since 2021. Here’s a closer look at the data. These papers, although experiencing negative growth when it comes to print, are still extremely popular and widely-read publications digitally—not only in the U.S., but worldwide. For example, the New York Times reported having reached 9 million subscribers globally earlier this year. The one paper with increased print circulation was The Villages Daily Sun, which operates out of a retirement community in Florida. Elderly people tend to be the most avid readers of print papers. Another Florida newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, was the worst performer at -26%. In total, 2,500 U.S. newspapers have shut down since 2005. One-third of American newspapers are expected to be shuttered by 2025. This particularly impacts small communities and leaves many across America in ‘news deserts.’
Print vs. Digital Newspapers
Regardless of print’s downturn, digital subscriptions remain much higher for most of these papers. As one example, The Washington Post has over 3 million online subscribers, compared to their 159,000 print readers. To put things in perspective, around 24 million print papers now circulate throughout the U.S. on any given day. But looking back at the industry’s peak in the 1980s, almost 64 million were distributed on any given weekday. And digital is not done growing. Newsroom hires have been ramping up for “digital-native” news sites—publications that started online and never had a print version. On the flipside, employment at traditional papers has more than halved since 2008.
Problems with Media
American news media can be extremely divisive. Many newsrooms across the country play into fear, sensationalism, and partisan politics. Digital news only makes this worse, utilizing algorithms designed to keep a person’s eyes on the page longer, pushing stories with narratives a person shows interest in, and often taking them down a rabbit hole of fringe information—sometimes towards the extremes. Additionally, the business of journalism is an increasingly less lucrative industry. Most revenue comes from digital ads running on news sites—so rather than selling the news to consumers, it’s the time and attention of consumers that is being sold to advertisers. Furthermore, some of the best quality content is locked up behind subscription-based paywalls. Print may actually be one way to avoid some of the more obvious issues, particularly because there’s no way to track the data on which stories you read. But all publications still have inherent bias, of course, and it’s clear that print papers are not bouncing back any time soon. on Similar to the the precedent set by the music industry, many news outlets have also been figuring out how to transition into a paid digital monetization model. Over the past decade or so, The New York Times (NY Times)—one of the world’s most iconic and widely read news organizations—has been transforming its revenue model to fit this trend. This chart from creator Trendline uses annual reports from the The New York Times Company to visualize how this seemingly simple transition helped the organization adapt to the digital era.
The New York Times’ Revenue Transition
The NY Times has always been one of the world’s most-widely circulated papers. Before the launch of its digital subscription model, it earned half its revenue from print and online advertisements. The rest of its income came in through circulation and other avenues including licensing, referrals, commercial printing, events, and so on. But after annual revenues dropped by more than $500 million from 2006 to 2010, something had to change. In 2011, the NY Times launched its new digital subscription model and put some of its online articles behind a paywall. It bet that consumers would be willing to pay for quality content. And while it faced a rocky start, with revenue through print circulation and advertising slowly dwindling and some consumers frustrated that once-available content was now paywalled, its income through digital subscriptions began to climb. After digital subscription revenues first launched in 2011, they totaled to $47 million of revenue in their first year. By 2022 they had climbed to $979 million and accounted for 42% of total revenue.
Why Are Readers Paying for News?
More than half of U.S. adults subscribe to the news in some format. That (perhaps surprisingly) includes around four out of 10 adults under the age of 35. One of the main reasons cited for this was the consistency of publications in covering a variety of news topics. And given the NY Times’ popularity, it’s no surprise that it recently ranked as the most popular news subscription.
