This statistic illustrates the share of readers of The Washington Post in the United States in the last two weeks. As of September 2024, 21 percent of 18 - 29 year old consumers do so in the U.S. This is according to exclusive results from the Consumer Insights Global survey which shows that 20 percent of 30 - 49 year old customers also fall into this category.Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

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 New York Times had 10.8 million digital subscribers as of February 2025, making the publication the global leader in this regard, followed by Substack and The Wall Street Journal with four million and 3.8 million online news subscribers respectively. Digital subscriptions – the future for news publishers? Subscriptions were cited as the most important digital revenue stream for publishers worldwide in every year from 2021 to 2023, ahead of advertising. As subscriptions have increased, customer retention has also become a growing concern, and according to the aforementioned subscriber losses experienced by The Washington Post, is a well-founded one. Retaining paying members is crucial to achieve growth, and publishers must keep abreast of their users’ needs and industry trends in order to do this. The challenge to achieve sign-ups Converting readers to becoming paying subscribers to news products is challenging. Even video streaming services are experiencing churn. A 2022 survey revealed that 20 percent of U.S. subscribers aged 18 to 34 years old canceled between two and five subscriptions in the three months running up to the survey. If consumers are sacrificing more popular entertainment subscriptions to save money, news subscriptions could also suffer. In fact, 28 percent of U.S. subscribers canceled their news subscription* in the last year, a figure which could grow higher as the recession worsens and trust continues to fall.

A comparison between data from July 2019 and data from July 2020 reveals changes in consumption patterns for content created by the news aggregator Huffington Post in Italy. Average unique daily internet audience of the platform, in fact, decreased in terms of PC and tablet access, but the consumption of Huffington Post's content via smartphone increased considerably. As a result, average unique daily users increased overall in July 2020 compared to the same period of the previous year.

This statistic illustrates the circulation and daily readership of the Washington Times (Washington, D.C.) in the United States in 2012. The Washington Times had a print circulation of 59.19 thousand in 2012.

In 2023, the average weekday print circulation of The New York Times was approximately 279,000 copies, less than half the figure recorded in 2014. In that year, the company ceased publishing its figures based on weekday circulation for print, online, and other digital platforms, and published only its print circulation. The New York Times The New York Times was founded in 1851 and has been a household name in the United States for decades. The newspaper has adapted well to changes in the media industry, and between the final quarters of 2014 and 2020, paid subscribers to The New York Times’ digital only news product increased from 910 thousand to over five million. The New York Times is also one of the world’s leading podcast publishers, with unique streams and downloads of the company’s podcasts reaching tens and sometimes even hundreds of millions per month. Popularity and reliability As one of the most popular news websites in the United States, the NYT has been known to achieve 70 million unique monthly visitors, outperforming the likes of NBC News, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. That said, like many news publications, The New York Times has been the subject of controversy over the years. From accusations of liberal bias to its hiring practices, the newspaper has faced challenges regarding not only its published content but also its employees. In spite of this, just 15 percent of respondents to a survey seriously doubted the credibility of The New York Times, with most finding the publication to be a reliable source.

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).

As of 2018, the National Enquirer, an American tabloid newspaper, had a total circulation of around 265 thousand readers. The publication’s overall circulation has experienced year after year of decline, with the total number nearly halving since the 516 thousand reported in 2014. In addition to the recent struggles grappled with by many print media publications, the National Enquirer has experienced added difficulty due to its alleged involvement in a multitude of recent scandals.

 Newspaper industry

Thanks in part to the growing popularity and influence of web-based news sources, print newspapers have suffered decades of declining readership and circulation. The problem doesn’t seem to lie in the content or quality of these publications, but rather in the added convenience and accessibility offered by digital news platforms. Even the most successful publications in the United States such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post have seen their circulation decrease. Despite the struggles of the print format, many newspaper brands have introduced digital versions of their products, some of which have acquired hundreds of thousands of subscribers in a relatively short period of time.