Reality Check

Abstract

Twenty years into US newspapers’ online ventures, many are stuck between a shrinking market for their print product and an unsuccessful experiment with digital offerings. Since readership is the foundation for subscription and advertising revenue, this study, through a longitudinal analysis of readership data (2007, 2011, and 2015) of 51 US newspapers, provides an up-to-date review on these newspapers’ online and print readership. Results indicated that the (supposedly dying) print product still reaches far more readers than the (supposedly promising) digital product in these newspapers’ home markets, and this holds true across all age groups. In addition, these major newspapers’ online readership has shown little or no growth since 2007, and more than a half of them have seen a decline since 2011. The online edition contributes a relatively small number of online-only users to the combined readership in these newspapers’ home markets. These findings raise questions about US newspapers’ technology-driven strategy and call for a critical re-examination of unchecked assumptions about the future of newspapers.

KEYWORDS:

•  audience measurement
• digital journalism
• newspaper
• online news
• print newspaper
• readership
• Scarborough

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The interviews are conducted through Random Digit Dialing and include cell-phone-only respondents in all local markets.

2. A DMA is a specific geographic area to which a county in the United States is exclusively assigned on the basis of the television viewing habits of the people residing in the county, defined by A.C. Nielsen.

3. Formerly known as ABC’s Audience-FAX* eTrends Tool (http://abcas3.auditedmedia.com/audience-fax/default.aspx).

4. See http://auditedmedia.com/data/media-intelligence-center/reports-and-tools/.

5. Respondents are asked whether they have “read or looked into” any part of each of the weekday printed newspapers available in their local area in the past seven days. They are also asked whether they have visited the newspaper websites in the past seven days. The 2015 question prompted respondents to include access by laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc. “Reach” is the percentage of adults (age 18+) in the market that are reached by the newspaper.

6. See http://abcas3.auditedmedia.com/scarborough/login.aspx.