Readership Declines in the United States

The decline in daily newspaper readership actually began during the Great Depression, with the rise of radio. Between 1931 and 1939, six hundred newspapers ceased operation. Another circulation crisis occurred from the late 1960s through the 1970s with the rise in network television viewing and greater competition from suburban weeklies. In addition, with an increasing number of women working full-time outside the home, newspapers could no longer consistently count on one of their core readership groups.

Throughout the first decade of the 2000s, U.S. newspaper circulation dropped again, this time by more than 25 percent.42 In the face of such steep circulation and readership declines, however, overall audiences did start growing again thanks to online readers, and Pew’s State of the News Media 2013 report saw reasons for optimism:

Companies have started to experiment in a big way with a variety of new revenue streams and major organizational changes. Some of the bright opportunities—such as offering social marketing services to local businesses—are ventures too new to be measured yet industry-wide. They show signs of stabilizing revenue.

Digital pay plans are being adopted at 450 of the country’s 1,380 dailies and appear to be working not just at The New York Times but also at small and mid-sized papers. Twinned with print subscription and single-copy price increases, the digital paywall movement has circulation revenues holding steady or rising. Together with the other new revenue streams, these added circulation revenues are rebalancing the industry’s portfolio from its historic over-dependence on advertising.43

Remarkably, while the United States continues to experience declines in newspaper readership and advertising dollars, many other nations—where Internet news is still emerging—have experienced increases. For example, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) reported that between 2003 and 2009, there was an 8.8 percent growth in newspaper readership worldwide, mostly concentrated in Asia, Africa, and South America.44 In 2013, WAN reported that between 2008 and 2013, “newspaper circulation dropped by 13 per cent in North America but rose 9.8 per cent in Asia,” while ad revenue “declined by 42.1 per cent in North America but rose by 6.2 per cent in Asia.”45 (See “Global Village: For U.S. Newspaper Industry, an Example in Germany?”.)