Deane Jordan from our office was doing some research and came up with some interesting background on what’s been happening in newspaper circulation of readership. I thought it might be worth sharing.
Newspaper Circulation and Readership
• The number of newspapers has declined 1% a year for last 20 years to 1,452.
• Newspaper readership has been in decline since the 1920s, steeply since the 1990s
• In 1950 there were 1.23 newspapers per household. Despite a 50-percent increase in the population, only one in two households now gets the newspaper.
• Circulation has dropped during the last three years, 6.3% daily and 8% Sunday.
• Fifty-six million newspapers are sold daily, 60 million on Sunday.
• Half the people surveyed read the paper daily, the other half only once a week.
• Two thirds read the Sunday paper.
• The majority reader of the daily paper is male, of the Sunday, female, but the male/female numbers are close in each case. She’s three or four percent behind in the week but one percent ahead on Sunday.
• Gender gaps: Men read more technology, business/finance and sports articles
• Women read more food, entertainment, society and advice articles.
• Financially, people making $40,000 or less are the least likely to read a newspaper, using that definition.
• Only specialty and intensely local papers have kept or increased readership.
• The industry does not expect overall hard-copy readership to ever recover.
Causes of Decline in Readership/Circulation
• The demise of afternoon papers and failure of morning papers to capture that readership.
• Chasing demographics via subscription pricing. Aiming for affluent readers lost readership permanently.
• New media. First TV then cable. Hours per adult on the web are increasing, hours in the newspaper decreasing.
• In metropolitan areas, free dailies, intense local newspapers, and specialty papers have cut into paid daily circulation.
• Illiteracy among younger males. Twenty-five percent of white male high school seniors with college-educated parents cannot read and understand a newspaper.
• “Too time consuming” is the main reason why non-readers say they don’t read newspapers. That and “inconvenient” makes up 33% of why they don’t read it.
Other Demographics
• Everyone in all age groups is reading newspapers less.
• Biggest loss is in the 34- to 65-year old group.
• Hispanics read English newspapers the least of all ethnic groups.
• One buck against the trend: 82% of those with post graduate degrees earning $150,000 or more still read the paper.
Credibility
Newspapers today are the least trusted news medium.
The Internet is the most trusted news medium.
Internet
• Constantly breaking record advertising dollars.
• First quarter of 2007 some $4.9 billion was spent on advertising, a 26% increase. over last quarter 2006. Ad spending has increased steadily since 2002.
• Internet is the only news-delivering medium to see its audience grow.
• The Internet is convenient, available at work and instant. More people log on to read the news between 8 and 11 a.m. than 6 to 10 p.m.
• The Internet can combine all media and forms and can have links to provide context, historical material, and opinion. It is seen as a significant threat to TV.
• One fifth of newspaper buyers also go to that newspaper’s website.
• Ten percent get their news exclusively from the Internet.
• Those age 30 to 49 are the most likely to get news off the Internet.
• Despite multi-media capacity Internet journalism is mostly text based.
• Blogs are also becoming mainstream as a source of news and opinion for males.
• Visits to newspaper blogs went up 31 percent between 2005 and 2006.
• Newspapers do not expect the Internet to be profitable for them for years to come.
In the future, according to Journalism.org, the: “Washington Post will not be a newspaper company, but a text, picture, and video news provider. CBS News will not be a broadcaster. It, too, will be a text, audio and video news organization. News will be made to fit the PDAs, phones and perhaps other devices. People on future subways may turn on their phones to watch a network anchor deliver the news.”
If your business is involved in newspaper circulation and readership, this information might be of some help.
Original writing date: July 17, 2007