Paid circulation of daily weekday newspapers in the U.S. 1985-2020

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.