Declining Readership

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Although more people than ever before look at newspaper content each day (much of this online), the decline in actual newspaper readership in the United States began during the Great Depression, with the rise of radio. It continued in the late 1960s through the 1970s with the rise in network television viewing. “The State of the News Media 2011” report showed that daily circulation since 1990 had declined 30 percent. Readership was found to be particularly low among eighteen- to-twenty-four-year-olds; by 2010, only 27 percent reported they had read a newspaper the day before.11