The newspaper with the highest print circulation in the United States in the six months running to September 2023 was The Wall Street Journal, with an average weekday print circulation of 555.2 thousand. Ranking second was The New York Times, followed by The New York Post. The paper in the ranking with the highest year-over-year drop in circulation was The Denver Post with a decline of 25 percent (although Buffalo News recorded a higher drop, data does not refer to September 2022 to September 2023, see notes).

Online formats were the most used for weekly newspaper readership in Canada as of November 2023, according to a study on newspaper readership. A total of 59 percent of surveyed respondents stated to read newspaper content on websites or apps. Yet, despite traditional news media waning in popularity, newspapers in print format or their online counterparts were not far behind in the ranking, with 46 percent of respondents saying they read them this way.

The statistic shows the distribution of the print newspaper audience in the United States in 2016, by generation. According to the source, 37 percent of print newspaper readers in 2016 were part of the Boomer generation who are aged 50 to 69.

Circulation numbers for daily weekday newspapers peaked in 1987 when they amounted to over 62.82 million. In 2020 however, the paid circulation of daily newspapers was 24.29 million.

Paid circulation of US daily newspapers Since the beginning of the 21st century, the newspaper industry has felt vast repercussions from the transition to the digital information and technology economy. While the number of subscribers and overall circulation has always been important for newspaper publishers, for much of their history they have been supported primarily through their advertising revenues and despite growth in advertising overall, they have largely been unable to capitalize on the continued ad spend growth. Advertising spending in the United States is now predominantly attributed to online advertising.

The New York Times is one of America's biggest newspapers and, despite the decline of the print newspaper industry, the paper has maintained a paid Sunday circulation of over one million copies. As a result, the company's circulation revenue has, despite the bleak outlook of the market, actually increased in recent years, reaching 880 million U.S. dollars in 2016. The New York Times Company recognized the important of the growing digital market and, as a result, the company's digital only news product remains one of its most important segments. As of the end of 2016, this product had over 1.6 million subscribers, a large increase from the 800 thousand subscribers at the start of 2014.

The statistic shows the number of newspaper readers in the United State in 2010 and 2014, by platform. The number of adults who read newspaper content online only increased from nine million in 2010 to 20.6 million in 2014.

Newspaper readers in the United States – additional information

Online newspapers started to gain popularity in the late 90s with the rise of the internet. In parallel to this development, print media has seen its market share deteriorate over the years. Figures show a sharp decline of the print media, especially for daily newspapers in the U.S. The number of daily newspapers in the U.S. shrank by nearly 400, going from 1,730 in 1981 to the 1,331 in 2014. Daily newspaper readership in the U.S. has also dropped considerably in the last few years.This decline is not limited to the consumer's age; in the U.S., daily newspaper consumption has decreased across all age groups.

In line with this trend, the number of newspaper readers in the U.S. who read print newspaper and only print newspaper has declined between 2010 and 2014. In 2010, nearly 95 million people read only print newspapers. This figure stood at about 74 million in 2014. On the other hand, the number of readers who read newspaper content online increased from around 38 million in 2010 to nearly 55 million in 2014. The share of readers who read newspaper content online only nearly doubled during the same time period.

Despite this shift in readership between online and printed newspapers, credible and well-established newspapers brand have been able to reinvent themselves in this market. The New York Times, for example, was the most popular website of a print publication in the U.S. as of July 2015, and has recently reached a milestone for its online products. The New York Times Company's digital-only subscriber number has passed the one million mark for the first time in 2015. Along with the New York Times, USA Today, Daily Mail, the Washington Post and the Guardian are leading newspapers in the U.S. in terms of unique website visitors.

The statistic shows the distribution of newspaper media audience in the United States in January 2017, by platform. According to the source, 6 percent of the U.S. newspaper media audience consumed newspaper content using mobile devices only.

According to most recent market data, newspaper circulation revenue worldwide was forecast to amount to **** billion U.S. dollars in 2024. As print circulation has gradually fallen each year, from over ** billion USD in 2019 to just over ** billion in 2023, digital circulation continues to grow.

The national news brand with the highest reported drop circulation in the United Kingdom was Sunday People, with a circulation decrease of ** percent. The leading national paper by circulation, the Daily Mail, saw a drop of ** percent. Online newspaper readership The newspaper industry is having to make major readjustments to accommodate digital readership. Physical paper sales have been falling as consumers increasingly turn to online news outlets. Data on the monthly reach of national newspapers revealed that smartphones are the most popular platform for newspaper consumption across all major news brands, though free paper Metro had the highest print reach thanks to its regular distribution across London. Journalists Despite the fall in newspaper circulation, the number of journalists in the UK is climbing. In 2020, over 100 thousand journalists and newspaper and periodical editors were employed in the United Kingdom, the highest number recorded since 2010.

This statistic shows the share of daily newspaper readership across Canada as of June 2015, broken down by age group. During the reported period, the highest readership share belonged to consumers between the ages of 35 to 49 across all regions in Canada, with 23.89 percent.

The two highest ranking countries when it comes to the daily newspaper readers (print) in selected countries worldwide, are India and Austria. 57 percent of respondents from India as well as 37 percent from Austria state that they read this type of media product. Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

As of June 2024, the News UK paper with the highest average print readership was The Sun (Mon-Sat), with over 1.9 million people having read or looked at an average issue of the publication. The Times had an average readership of under one million in the same time period.

Checking the news online via mobile devices is becoming the norm among French press readers. Smartphones were indeed the most used devices to that effect in France. If most French newspapers recorded an increase in interest in digital press, the newspaper Le Parisien & Aujourd'hui en France ranked first with a 23.3 percent evolution from 2022 to 2023.

This statistic depicts the print newspaper readership in Spain in 2018, by age group. Approximately 27 percent of respondents aged between 50 and 64 years old stated that they read print newspapers during the period of time under consideration.

The circulation figures for daily newspapers in the United States reveal that USA Today distributed the most papers as of January 2019, with a daily circulation of over 1.62 million. Back in September 2017, The Wall Street Journal ranked first, with circulation figures far outperforming The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and New York Post. Although the 2019 data shows that all daily newspapers in the top ten ranking saw a decrease in circulation since 2017, the Chicago Tribune was hit the hardest. Despite making the top ten list in both years, the paper’s daily circulation decreased by almost 200 thousand.

The decline of newspaper circulation

It is no secret that print is floundering whilst at the same time digital media is flourishing. However, the impact of falling circulation figures on newspapers has an effect on advertising revenue, as circulation is one of the metrics used to determine and set advertising rates. In 2017, the estimated revenue of newspaper publishers in the United States was almost seven billion dollars lower than in 2010, despite several years of reasonably consistent revenue in terms of subscription and sales.

Similarly, print newspaper publishing revenue in the U.S. dropped by almost ten million dollars in seven years, whilst revenue for online newspapers showed positive growth.

A survey held in February 2022 revealed that white and Hispanic adults were most likely to read newspapers every day, with 12 percent reporting daily consumption. However, most consumers from all ethnic backgrounds said that they never used newspapers for news.

From 2006 to 2022, both print and digital newspaper readership decreased in Italy. While in 2006 almost ** million people read newspapers on a regular basis (at least five times per week), in 2022, only *** million people were doing so. The decrease is even sharper where occasional readers are concerned - i.e. those who read newspapers at least once a week, with the number falling from over ** million in 2006 to just over ** million in 2022. Written articles? No, thanks This sharp decline could be explained in different ways. One of the most obvious reasonings could be attributing it exclusively to the fall in print press sales. Beside the overall decline of print newspapers however, a mild decrease occurred in online news consumption as well. This is clear evidence of the fact that not only sales of printed newspapers decreased, but also that this decline has not been counterbalanced by an increase of online copies. Because of this reason, it is possible to conclude that Italians are, in general, less and less interested in reading written articles. Instead, they prefer to inform themselves through social networks and TV, as this statistic shows. A different trend across Europe The conclusion proposed in the previous paragraph cannot be generalized for all European countries. Indeed, across Europe, the share of people reading online newspapers and magazines increased by almost *** percent from 2013 to 2017 , while Italy seems not to follow such European trend.

Reading newspapers on a website or app was the most popular way to access newspapers in Canada as of November 2023, with 50 to 70 percent accessing papers this way. Boomers were the most likely to read print papers or their online counterparts.

In Italy, in 2022, the greatest number of individuals reading newspapers at least once a week were aged between 45 and 64 years old (about 5.5 million readers). Moreover, around 2.02 million people aged 65 years old and over were reading newspaper five times or more per week.

This statistic shows the online newspapers readership in Spain in 2018, by age group. Approximately 50 percent of respondents aged between 25 and 34 years old stated that they read online newspapers during the period of time under consideration.

In Italy, in 2020, the greatest number of people reading newspapers at least once a week (about 4.8 million readers) were mainly living in metropolitan areas of ten thousand to 50 thousand inhabitants. On the other hand, the lowest amount of readers lived in small municipalities with less than two thousand inhabitants, where the number of individuals added up to about one million.