MORE FACT SHEETS: STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA

Newspapers are a critical part of the American news landscape, but they have been hit hard as more and more Americans consume news digitally. The industry’s financial fortunes and subscriber base have been in decline since the mid-2000s, and website audience traffic, after some years of growth, has leveled off. Explore the patterns and longitudinal data about U.S. newspapers below.

Audience

The estimated total U.S. daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) in 2018 was 28.6 million for weekday and 30.8 million for Sunday, down 8% and 9%, respectively, from the previous year.

Weekday print circulation decreased 12% and Sunday print circulation decreased 13%.

(Note that in this fact sheet and in the chart below, data through 2014 is from Editor & Publisher, which was published on the website of the News Media Alliance (NMA), known at the time as the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). Since then, the NMA/NAA no longer supplies this data, so the Center determined the year-over-year change in total circulation for those daily U.S. newspapers that report to the Alliance for Audited Media and meet certain criteria, as detailed in the note of the chart below. This percentage change was then applied to the total circulation from the prior year – thus the use of the term “estimated total circulation.”)

Total estimated circulation of U.S. daily newspapers Year Weekday Sunday Weekday (estimated) Sunday (estimated) 1940 41,132,000 32,371,000 1945 48,384,000 39,860,000 1946 50,928,000 43,665,000 1947 51,673,000 45,151,000 1948 52,285,000 46,308,000 1949 52,846,000 46,399,000 1950 53,829,000 46,582,000 1951 54,018,000 46,279,000 1952 53,951,000 46,210,000 1953 54,472,000 45,949,000 1954 55,072,000 46,176,000 1955 56,147,000 46,448,000 1956 57,102,000 47,162,000 1957 57,805,000 47,044,000 1958 57,418,000 46,955,000 1959 58,300,000 47,848,000 1960 58,882,000 47,699,000 1961 59,261,000 48,216,000 1962 59,849,000 48,888,000 1963 58,905,000 46,830,000 1964 60,412,000 48,383,000 1965 60,358,000 48,600,000 1966 61,397,000 49,282,000 1967 61,561,000 49,224,000 1968 62,535,000 49,693,000 1969 62,060,000 49,675,000 1970 62,108,000 49,217,000 1971 62,231,000 49,665,000 1972 62,510,000 50,001,000 1973 63,147,000 51,717,000 1974 61,877,000 51,679,000 1975 60,655,000 51,096,000 1976 60,977,000 51,565,000 1977 61,495,000 52,429,000 1978 61,990,000 53,990,000 1979 62,223,000 54,380,000 1980 62,202,000 54,676,000 1981 61,431,000 55,180,000 1982 62,487,000 56,261,000 1983 62,645,000 56,747,000 1984 63,340,000 57,574,000 1985 62,766,000 58,826,000 1986 62,502,000 58,925,000 1987 62,826,000 60,112,000 1988 62,695,000 61,474,000 1989 62,649,000 62,008,000 1990 62,328,000 62,635,000 1991 60,687,000 62,068,000 1992 60,164,000 62,160,000 1993 59,812,000 62,566,000 1994 59,305,000 62,295,000 1995 58,193,000 61,229,000 1996 56,983,000 60,798,000 1997 56,728,000 60,486,000 1998 56,182,000 60,066,000 1999 55,979,000 59,894,000 2000 55,773,000 59,421,000 2001 55,578,000 59,090,000 2002 55,186,000 58,780,000 2003 55,185,000 58,495,000 2004 54,626,000 57,754,000 2005 53,345,000 55,270,000 2006 52,329,000 53,179,000 2007 50,742,000 51,246,000 2008 48,597,000 49,115,000 2009 45,653,000 46,164,000 2010 -- -- 2011 44,421,000 48,510,000 2012 43,433,000 44,821,000 2013 40,712,000 43,292,000 2014 40,420,000 42,751,000 2015 37,711,860 40,955,458 2016 34,657,199 37,801,888 2017 30,948,419 33,971,695 2018 28,554,137 30,817,351 Pew Research Center

Digital circulation is more difficult to gauge. Three of the highest-circulation daily papers in the U.S. – The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post – have in recent years not fully reported their digital circulation to the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM), the group that audits the circulation figures of many of the largest North American newspapers and other publications. Two of these papers report such digital circulation elsewhere: The New York Times in their financial statements and The Wall Street Journal in reports available on the Dow Jones website. (The Washington Post does not fully report digital circulation in any forum.) But because they may not be counted under the same rules used by AAM, these independently produced figures cannot easily be merged with the AAM data.

Taking these complexities into account, using only the AAM data, digital circulation in 2018 is projected to have risen, with weekday up 6% and Sunday up 8%. According to the independently produced reports from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, both companies experienced substantial gains in digital circulation in the past year: 27% for the Times and 23% for the Journal, on top of large gains in 2017. If these independently produced figures were included with the AAM data in both 2017 and 2018, weekday digital circulation would have risen by 17%.

The addition of these figures would also change the overall picture for combined print and digital circulation. The digital boost driven by these two large, national brands would still result in an overall drop in circulation year over year, but a smaller one: Overall weekday circulation would have fallen by 1% in 2018 rather than 8%.

Unique visitors of newspaper websites Year Average monthly unique visitors Q4 2014 8,233,544 Q4 2015 9,709,071 Q4 2016 11,734,536 Q4 2017 11,527,744 Q4 2018 11,600,124 Pew Research Center

Gauging digital audience for the entire newspaper industry is difficult since many daily newspapers do not receive enough traffic to their websites to be measured by Comscore, the data source relied on here. Thus, the figures offered above reflect the top 50 U.S. daily newspapers based on circulation. In the fourth quarter of 2018, there was an average of 11.6 million monthly unique visitors (across all devices) for these top 50 newspapers. This is nearly the same as in Q4 2017 (11.5 million) and 2016 (11.7 million); following two years of growth from 2014 to 2016, newspapers’ website traffic has leveled off. (The list of top 50 papers is based on Sunday circulation but also includes The Wall Street Journal, which does not report Sunday circulation to AAM. It also includes The Washington Post and The New York Times, which make the top 50 even though they do not fully report their digital circulation to AAM. For more details and the full list of newspapers, see our methodology.)

Visit duration of newspaper websites Year Average minutes per visit Q4 2014 2.59 Q4 2015 2.59 Q4 2016 2.45 Q4 2017 2.44 Q4 2018 2.32 Pew Research Center

Average minutes per visit for the top 50 U.S. daily newspapers, based on circulation, is about 2 1/3 minutes in Q4 2018. This is down 5% from Q4 2017.

Economics

The total estimated advertising revenue for the newspaper industry in 2018 was $14.3 billion, based on the Center’s analysis of financial statements for publicly traded newspaper companies. This is down 13% from 2017. Total estimated circulation revenue was $11.0 billion, compared with $11.2 billion in 2017.

Estimated advertising and circulation revenue of the newspaper industry Year Advertising Circulation Advertising (estimated) Circulation (estimated) 1956 $3,223,000,000 $1,344,492,000 1957 $3,268,000,000 $1,373,464,000 1958 $3,176,000,000 $1,459,013,000 1959 $3,526,000,000 $1,549,576,000 1960 $3,681,000,000 $1,604,228,000 1961 $3,601,000,000 $1,684,319,000 1962 $3,659,000,000 $1,819,840,000 1963 $3,780,000,000 $1,901,820,000 1964 $4,120,000,000 $1,983,809,000 1965 $4,426,000,000 $2,023,090,000 1966 $4,865,000,000 $2,109,050,000 1967 $4,910,000,000 $2,180,242,000 1968 $5,232,000,000 $2,288,215,000 1969 $5,714,000,000 $2,425,446,000 1970 $5,704,000,000 $2,634,402,000 1971 $6,167,000,000 $2,833,320,000 1972 $6,939,000,000 $2,929,233,000 1973 $7,481,000,000 $3,037,820,000 1974 $7,842,000,000 $3,581,733,000 1975 $8,234,000,000 $3,921,515,000 1976 $9,618,000,000 $4,087,303,000 1977 $10,751,000,000 $4,310,236,000 1978 $12,213,000,000 $4,534,779,000 1979 $13,863,000,000 $4,950,542,000 1980 $14,794,000,000 $5,469,589,000 1981 $16,527,000,000 $6,206,141,000 1982 $17,694,000,000 $6,656,661,000 1983 $20,581,000,000 $7,044,098,000 1984 $23,522,000,000 $7,368,158,000 1985 $25,170,000,000 $7,659,297,000 1986 $26,990,000,000 $8,052,148,000 1987 $29,412,000,000 $8,399,032,000 1988 $31,197,000,000 $8,046,287,000 1989 $32,368,000,000 $8,370,324,000 1990 $32,280,000,000 1991 $30,349,000,000 $8,697,679,000 1992 $30,639,000,000 $9,163,534,000 1993 $31,869,000,000 $9,193,802,000 1994 $34,109,000,000 $9,443,217,000 1995 $36,092,000,000 $9,720,186,000 1996 $38,075,000,000 $9,969,240,000 1997 $41,330,000,000 $10,065,642,000 1998 $43,925,000,000 $10,266,955,000 1999 $46,289,000,000 $10,472,294,000 2000 $48,670,000,000 $10,540,643,000 2001 $44,305,000,000 $10,783,078,000 2002 $44,102,000,000 $11,025,896,000 2003 $46,156,000,000 $11,224,362,000 2004 $48,244,000,000 $10,988,651,000 2005 $49,435,000,000 $10,746,901,000 2006 $49,275,402,572 $10,548,344,000 2007 $45,375,000,000 $10,294,920,096 2008 $37,848,257,630 $10,086,956,940 2009 $27,564,000,000 $10,066,783,026 2010 $25,837,698,822 $10,049,360,689 2011 $27,078,473,864 $9,989,064,525 2012 $25,316,461,215 $10,448,561,493 2013 $23,587,097,435 $10,641,662,892 2014 $22,077,809,951 $10,744,324,061 2015 $20,362,238,293 $10,870,292,720 2016 $18,274,943,567 $10,910,460,499 2017 $16,476,453,084 $11,211,011,020 2018 $14,346,024,182 $10,995,341,920 Pew Research Center

In the chart above, data through 2012 comes from the trade group formerly known as the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), now known as the News Media Alliance (NMA). Data from 2013 onward is based on the Center’s analysis of financial statements from publicly traded U.S. newspaper companies, which now number seven and account for more than 300 U.S. daily newspapers, from large national papers to midsize metro dailies and local papers. From 2013 onward, the year-over-year percentage change in advertising and circulation revenue for these companies is calculated and then applied to the previous year’s revenue totals as reported by the NMA/NAA. In testing this method, changes from 2006 through 2012 generally matched those as reported by the NMA/NAA; for more details, see our 2016 report.

Share of newspaper advertising revenue coming from digital advertising Year Advertising revenue coming from digital advertising 2011 17% 2012 19% 2013 20% 2014 21% 2015 25% 2016 29% 2017 31% 2018 35% Pew Research Center

Digital advertising accounted for 35% of newspaper advertising revenue in 2018, based on this analysis of publicly traded newspaper companies. The portion stood at 31% in 2017 – but at 17% in 2011, the first year it was possible to perform this analysis.

Newsroom investment

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics, 37,900 people worked as reporters, editors, photographers, or film and video editors in the newspaper industry in 2018. That is down 14% from 2015 and 47% from 2004. Median wages for editors in 2018 were about $49,000, while for reporters, the figure was about $35,000.

Employment in newspaper newsrooms

Employees

Wages

Year Total 2004 71,640 2005 72,600 2006 74,410 2007 73,810 2008 71,070 2009 60,770 2010 55,260 2011 54,050 2012 51,430 2013 48,920 2014 46,310 2015 44,120 2016 42,450 2017 39,210 2018 37,900 Pew Research Center

Year News analysts,

reporters and

correspondents Editors Photographers Camera operators

and film and

video editors 2012 $35,293 $50,556 $39,675 $52,342 2013 $35,296 $49,883 $41,007 $54,979 2014 $34,496 $48,786 $39,932 $54,254 2015 $34,341 $49,413 $40,520 $59,408 2016 $34,531 $50,426 $41,647 $56,768 2017 $35,013 $50,635 $40,750 $52,602 2018 $34,940 $49,310 $41,890 $49,190 Pew Research Center

Find out more

This fact sheet was compiled by Senior Researcher Michael Barthel.

Read the methodology.

Find more in-depth explorations of U.S. newspapers by following the links below: