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Local Newspapers Fact Sheet

The transition to digital news consumption has hit the newspaper industry hard in recent years. Some national publications have managed to weather the storm in part by attracting digital subscribers, but many local newspapers have been forced to shutter their doors permanently, especially during the coronavirus pandemic .

To gain a clearer picture of how locally focused U.S. newspapers have fared in the digital age, Pew Research Center researchers reexamined data included in the Center’s State of the News Media newspapers fact sheet, excluding four publications that reach a large national audience. (Three of these four newspapers reach national audiences in addition to their respective local audiences.) These four publications – The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today – account for a large share of circulation in the newspaper industry and as such overshadow their locally focused counterparts in the data. Specifically, this analysis looks at economic data from publicly traded newspaper companies’ financial statements (2011-2020 for digital advertising revenue and 2013-2020 for total revenues), circulation data from Alliance for Audited Media (2015-2020), and digital audience data from Comscore (2014-2020). This addendum supplements the State of the News Media newspapers fact sheet , which presents the analysis at the overall industry level.

To gain a clearer picture of how local U.S. newspapers have fared the past few years, researchers reexamined the data used in the Center’s State of the News Media newspapers fact sheet to exclude several publications geared toward a national audience, even if they also report news for a particular region (The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today). Specifically, this analysis gives an overview of the state of local U.S. newspapers using circulation data from Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) for 2015-2020, revenue data from SEC filings of publicly traded newspaper companies (2011-2020 for digital advertising revenue and 2013-2020 for total revenues), and digital audience data from Comscore (2014-2020). Since Gannett (the parent company of USA Today) does not break out revenue by individual news brands in its SEC filings, USA Today could not be excluded from the revenue data. Please see the “Revenue” section for more details.

In this analysis, the four publications included in our definition of national newspapers account for a disproportionately large share of circulation in the newspaper industry. These four publications top the list for print readership in the Alliance for Audited Media data. Accounting for digital circulation is more difficult, however, given that three of these four publications do not fully report their digital circulation to AAM, as discussed previously in this Decoded post . The closest available measure of digital circulation is digital subscriptions, which The New York Times publishes in public SEC filings and The Wall Street Journal provides in audited statements on the Dow Jones website. The Washington Post, as a privately held company, does not publicly report its digital subscription numbers, although data will emerge sporadically in press reports . Each of these four publications – The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today – has digital subscription numbers in the millions, far surpassing metro publications with comparable print circulation, according to the best available public information. Removing the national-profile papers from the data provides a clearer view of publications operating on a more locally focused scale.

With these national publications excluded, researchers examined the circulation of over 600 daily U.S. newspapers that submit to regular circulation audits by AAM and revenues from SEC filings of five publicly traded newspaper companies that account for more than 300 U.S. daily newspapers. Researchers also examined digital traffic of the top 46 local daily U.S. newspapers with the highest circulation, according to AAM data. The digital traffic analysis includes only the top 46 papers by circulation since many daily newspapers do not receive enough traffic to their websites to be measured by Comscore, the data source relied on here.

Not all data sources in the State of the News Media newspapers fact sheet allowed researchers to remove specific publications. Some data in the main fact sheet is therefore not included in this analysis: employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, historical circulation data from Editor & Publisher, and historical revenue data from News Media Alliance. Because the historical circulation and revenue data could not be included in this analysis, the circulation and revenue figures presented here are not adjusted according to the historical data like they are in the main fact sheet. Rather, they are presented as originally reported by AAM and companies’ SEC filings.

Read the full State of the News Media methodology .

This locally focused analysis shows that many of the trends apparent in the overall newspaper industry hold true for local U.S. newspapers as well.

The total combined print and digital circulation for locally focused U.S. daily newspapers in 2020 was 8.3 million for weekday (Monday-Friday) and 15.4 million for Sunday. Each of these numbers is roughly on par with the previous year, but they are still among the lowest reported: Total weekday circulation is down 40% since 2015, the first year available for this analysis. Similarly, total Sunday circulation has fallen 45% since 2015.

• Total Circulation
• Print Circulation
• Digital Circulation

Within those overall declines is a more complex relationship between print and digital circulation. Print weekday circulation in 2020 was down 12% from 2019, while print Sunday circulation declined 10%.

In contrast, digital weekday circulation was up 30% in 2020, and digital Sunday circulation climbed 29%. The 2020 increases for digital circulation are the greatest year-over-year increases for digital since 2015. Overall, digital weekday circulation has grown 21% since 2015, and digital Sunday circulation has increased 27%.

Print, meanwhile, experienced a steady decline in both weekday and Sunday circulation between 2015 and 2020, falling 55% for print weekday during this time and 54% for print Sunday.

To get a clearer picture of the digital audience for locally focused publications, researchers reexamined the Comscore data included in the State of the News Media newspapers fact sheet by removing newspapers with a national audience from the analysis (The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today). This updated analysis of locally focused daily U.S. newspapers includes the remaining top 46 publications based on their circulation. 1

Note: For each year, the average traffic for each website during the fourth quarter (October-December) was calculated; the data point represents the overall average of those numbers. Analysis is of the top 46 newspapers by average Sunday circulation for Q3 2015-2020, according to Alliance for Audited Media data, excluding The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, which have a large national audience. For each newspaper, the Comscore entity matching its homepage URL was analyzed.

Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, U.S., Unique Visitors, October-December 2014-2020.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, there were an average of 7.6 million monthly unique visitors to these 46 local news sites, up 9% from 2019. (When the four national publications above are included, newspapers received 13.9 million unique online visitors in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 14% from 2019.)

The average number of monthly unique visitors to local news websites has increased 44% since the fourth quarter of 2014, the first year in our data.

The increase in the number of visitors to locally focused news sites has been accompanied by a simultaneous decline in the duration of those visits – a pattern that exists for the newspaper industry overall. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the average minutes per visit to the websites of local papers was 1.8 minutes, compared with 2.1 minutes in Q4 2019. This is a 13% year-over-year decline, the steepest drop in minutes per visit since Q4 2014, the first year in our data.

Note: For each year, the average minutes per visit for each website during the fourth quarter (October-December) was calculated; the data point represents the overall average of those numbers. Analysis is of the top 46 newspapers by average Sunday circulation for Q3 2015-2020, according to Alliance for Audited Media data, excluding The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, which have a large national audience. For each newspaper, the Comscore entity matching its homepage URL was analyzed.

Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, U.S., Average Minutes Per Visit, October-December 2014-2020.

Overall, the average duration of visits to local news websites has declined 41 seconds since Q4 2014, similar to the overall decrease of 45 seconds in the broader industry.

The total advertising revenue for locally focused U.S. daily newspapers in 2020 was $1.07 billion, based on the Center’s analysis of financial statements for publicly traded newspaper companies. 2 This is down 40% from 2019, much steeper than the 25% decline the overall newspaper industry experienced during the same time. Total circulation revenue was $1.1 billion in 2020 for local newspapers, compared with $1.5 billion in 2019. As is also seen in the overall industry, 2020 was the first year local newspaper advertising revenue fell below circulation revenue.

In the revenue charts above, data is pulled directly from year-end Securities and Exchange Commission filings of five publicly traded newspaper companies. In 2019 and 2020, that includes the following: Belo, Lee, Tribune, McClatchy (2019 only) and Gannett. Since Gannett does not break out revenue by individual news brands in its SEC filings, USA Today could not be excluded from this part of the analysis. The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are not publicly traded and do not file public financial reports with the SEC. For this reason, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are not part of the revenue analysis here or in the Center’s State of the News Media newspapers fact sheet. Revenue figures from The New York Times have been excluded. 

Note: Data shows the dollar amount of each revenue type according to analysis of year-end SEC filings. Figures do not include The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal, which have a large national audience. USA Today is included as part of Gannett’s overall revenues. Dollar values are not adjusted according to pre-2013 data from News Media Alliance and thus are not comparable to the estimated figures published in Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media newspapers fact sheet. n

Source: Pew Research Center analysis of year-end Securities and Exchange Commission filings of publicly traded newspaper companies (2013-2020).

Digital advertising accounted for 35% of advertising revenue for locally focused U.S. newspapers in 2020, based on this analysis of publicly traded newspaper companies. That share is roughly on par with the 39% of ad revenue coming from digital ads in the overall industry. For local newspapers, the share of ad revenue coming from digital has grown steadily from 15% in 2011, the first year in our data.

Note: Figures do not include The New York Times, The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal, which have a large national audience. USA Today is included as part of Gannett’s overall revenues.

Source: Pew Research Center analysis of year-end Securities and Exchange Commission filings for publicly traded newspaper companies that break out digital advertising revenue for each year (2011-2020).

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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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A Survey Says

Big Drop in Share of Americans Calling Themselves Christian

By Nate Cohn

• May 12, 2015

The Christian share of adults in the United States has declined sharply since 2007, affecting nearly all major Christian traditions and denominations, and crossing age, race and region, according to an extensive survey by the Pew Research Center .

Seventy-one percent of American adults were Christian in 2014, the lowest estimate from any sizable survey to date, and a decline of 5 million adults and 8 percentage points since a similar Pew survey in 2007.

The Christian share of the population has been declining for decades, but the pace rivals or even exceeds that of the country’s most significant demographic trends, like the growing Hispanic population. It is not confined to the coasts, the cities, the young or the other liberal and more secular groups where one might expect it, either.

“The decline is taking place in every region of the country, including the Bible Belt,” said Alan Cooperman, the director of religion research at the Pew Research Center and the lead editor of the report.

The decline has been propelled in part by generational change, as relatively non-Christian millennials reach adulthood and gradually replace the oldest and most Christian adults. But it is also because many former Christians, of all ages, have joined the rapidly growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated or “nones”: a broad category including atheists, agnostics and those who adhere to “nothing in particular.”

The Pew survey, which included 35,000 adults, offers an unusually comprehensive account of religion in the United States because the Census Bureau does not ask Americans about their religion. Most other nongovernmental surveys do not interview enough adults to allow precise estimates, do not ask other detailed questions about religion or do not have older surveys for comparison.

The report does not offer an explanation for the decline of the Christian population, but the low levels of Christian affiliation among the young, well educated and affluent are consistent with prevailing theories for the rise of the unaffiliated, like the politicization of religion by American conservatives, a broader disengagement from all traditional institutions and labels, the combination of delayed and interreligious marriage, and economic development.

Over all, the religiously unaffiliated number 56 million and represent 23 percent of adults, up from 36 million and 16 percent in 2007, Pew estimates. Nearly half of the growth was from atheists and agnostics, whose tallies nearly doubled to 7 percent of adults. The remainder of the unaffiliated, those who describe themselves as having “no particular religion,” were less likely to say that religion was an important part of their lives than eight years ago.

The ranks of the unaffiliated have been bolstered by former Christians. Nearly a quarter of people who were raised as Christian have left the group, and ex-Christians now represent 19 percent of adults.

Attrition was most substantial among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics, who have declined in absolute numbers and as a share of the population since 2007. The acute decline in the Catholic population, which fell by roughly 3 million, is potentially a new development. Most surveys have found that the Catholic share of the population has been fairly stable over the last few decades, in no small part because it has been reinforced by migration from Latin America.

Not all religions or even Christian traditions declined so markedly. The number of evangelical Protestants dipped only slightly as a share of the population, by 1 percentage point, and actually increased in raw numbers.

Non-Christian faiths, like Judaism, Islam and Hinduism, generally held steady or increased their share of the population, reaching 5.9 percent of adults, up from 4.7 percent in 2007. Jewish adherence was steady at 1.9 percent of adults, a statistically insignificant increase of 0.2 percentage points from 1.7 percent in 2007. Adherence to Islam grew faster than any other major religious affiliation, rising by 0.5 percentage points over the last eight years, but Muslims still represent just 0.9 percent of adults in the United States.

Younger adults have been particularly likely to join the unaffiliated in recent years. In 2007, 25 percent of 18-to-26-year-olds were unaffiliated; now 34 percent of the same cohort is unaffiliated.

But the unaffiliated share of the population is increasing among older Americans as well. The Christian share of the population born before 1964 has dipped by 2 percentage points since 2007.

There are few signs that the decline in Christian America will slow. Although some might assume that young people will become more religious as they age, the Pew data gives reason to think otherwise.

“It’s not that they start unaffiliated and become religious,” Mr. Cooperman said. “In fact, it’s the opposite.”

At the same time, every new cohort has been less affiliated than the last, with even the youngest millennials proving less affiliated, at 36 percent, than older millennials, at 34 percent.

The changing religious composition of America has widespread political and cultural ramifications. Conservatives and Republicans, for example, have traditionally relied on big margins among white Christians to compensate for substantial deficits among nonwhite and secular voters. The declining white share of the population is a well-documented challenge to the traditional Republican coalition, but the religious dimension of the G.O.P.’s demographic challenge has received less attention, perhaps because of the dearth of data.

Mitt Romney received 79 percent support among white evangelicals, 59 percent among white Catholics, 54 percent among nonevangelical white Protestants, but only 33 percent among nonreligious white voters.

But others argue that the relationship between politics and religion might work the other way: The declining number of self-identified Christians could be the result of a political backlash against the association of Christianity with conservative political values.

“The two are now intertwined,” said Mike Hout, a professor of sociology at New York University. “You can’t use one to predict the other, because if the Republicans switched to more economic or immigration issues, then perhaps the rise of the unaffiliated will slow down.”

An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect figure for the decline of Christians in the United States since 2007. It is 8 percentage points, not 7.

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Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. It studies U.S. politics and policy; journalism and media; internet, science and technology; religion and public life; Hispanic trends; global attitudes and trends; and U.S. social and demographic trends. All of the center’s reports are available at www.pewresearch.org . Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts , its primary funder.

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