Newspaper Publishers
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 3,600 newspaper publishers in the US produce and distribute news and other content in print or electronic form. Firms earn revenue primarily from selling advertising space and subscriptions. Large firms may operate as media conglomerates and publish or broadcast content across multiple platforms, including electronic media, magazines, television, or radio. Large firms may own multiple newspapers across the country; some operate internationally.
Competition for Ad Dollars
In the increasingly fragmented world of media, newspapers compete for advertising dollars with a variety of alternative sources, including TV, magazines, direct mail, radio, the Internet and billboards.
Long Decline for Traditional Print Business
The newspaper publishing industry has been in long-term decline, driven by the rise of the Internet and digital media.
Industry size & Structure
The average newspaper publisher operates out of a single location, employs 32 workers, and generates about $6.4 million annually.
- The newspaper publishing industry consists of about 3,600 firms that employ about 115,000 workers and generate $23 billion annually.
- The industry is concentrated; the top 50 companies account for 74% of industry revenue.
- The industry includes national publications, market-level publications, and community newspapers.
- Large companies include News Corporation (Wall Street Journal, New York Post), Gannett (USA Today, Detroit Free Press), Advance Publications (Star Ledger, Cleveland Plain Dealer), McClatchy Company (Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee), and the New York Times.
- The top daily newspapers (based on circulation) include the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the New York Post.
Industry Forecast
Newspaper Publishers Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Nov 14, 2024 - Google Discover Becomes A Top Referrer
- Traffic from Google Discover now exceeds traffic from Google Search for some publishers, according to social analytics platform Chartbeat. Traffic from social media has decreased by a third since January 2023, from 6% of all traffic then to 4% of all traffic now. Search traffic, still dominated by Google search, has remained relatively steady since January 2023. Google Discover — the Google product offering personalized content recommendations via Google’s mobile apps — is increasingly a top referrer, up 13% across Chartbeat clients since January 2023.
- Federal prosecutors have opened their second monopoly case against Google, alleging that the advertising and technology giant has abused its monopoly power over the online ad market. The result, prosecutors say, is higher prices for advertisers and fewer dollars for publishers, which in turn has meant poorer offerings of news and other content. Justice Department attorney Julia Tarver Wood said in her opening statement that Google has dominated the sector through acquisitions until it could manipulate the rules of ad auctions to its own benefit. The US Department of Justice is calling for a divestment of Google's Ad Manager suite, which is responsible for ads at the tops and sides of many web pages.
- Nearly half of US residents who don’t pay for local news cite its free availability elsewhere as the main reason, according to a Pew-Knight Initiative survey. Only 15% of the survey respondents said that they had paid for local news in the past year, approximately the same proportion as in 2018. A third of the non-payers said they were simply not interested enough in local news to pay for it in the first place.
- Newspaper publishing industry employment decreased significantly during the first nine months of 2024 and average wages for nonsupervisory employees were unchanged from January levels in September 2024 after increasing slightly during the first half of the year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Personal consumption expenditures, an indicator of demand for newspapers, increased slightly during the first six months of 2024, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
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