The Rise and Fall of Newspapers

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The Rise and Fall of Newspapers

• A Century of Power and Persuasion.

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Chain Newspapers

• When one owner (individual or corporation)
  acquires more than one newspaper, its called a
  chain. The larger chains grew until they
  dominated the market.

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For The Spanish-American War -New York City -- ca
1896

• The New York Journal 700,000 circulation.
• Pulitzers New York World 800,000 circulation.
• The New York Sun 150,000 circulation.
• Total circ-- 1,650,000

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Against The War -- New York City ca. 1896

• The New York Herald 100,000 circulation
• The New York Post 25,000
• New York Tribune 75,000
• New York Times 25,000.
• Total circ. 225,000

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Pro-war outnumbers anti-war

• By 1.4 million readers
• These are BIG numbers for 1896

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Two Newspapers Dominate the Market

• Journal and World 1.5 million circulation
• All the rest -- five papers 350,000 circulation

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Ownership Today

• 1550 U.S. Cities have daily newspapers
• 100 U.S. Cities have two or more dailies
• 43 cities have two independent dailies
• 57 cities have two dailies -- both owned by
  the same company
• Fewer owners, fewer voices.

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THE POINT FEWER OWNERS, FEWER VOICES
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Biggest Chain -- Gannett

• 100 Newspapers
• TV and radio holdings
• USA Today

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(No Transcript)
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Top Chains

• Gannett -- 90 (including USA Today, Olympian,
  etc.) Dow Jones -- 20 (including Wall Street
  Journal) Thompson -- 183 dailies (including
  papers in Canada, Britain, etc.) New York Times
  --20 (including NYT and Boston Globe)
  Knight-Ridder -- 31 dailies (including 49 of
  Seattle Times) Newhouse -- 26 dailies (including
  Portland) Tribune Co. -- 14 (including Chicago
  Tribune -- recently acquired Times Mirror with 10
  more , including LA Times) Scripps-Howard -- 23
  Hearst -- 12 (including PI in Seattle) Cox --
  20 News Corp. -- 3 (Murdoch, includes Boston
  Herald) Media News Group -- 18 Ingersoll -- 37

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Death in the afternoon --the decline of afternoon
newspapers
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Television Becomes Advertising Mecca

• The Year Television First Had More Advertising
  Revenues Than Newspaper

1960
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Competition

• Big companies swallow little ones
• True competition declines
• The race for profits undermines journalism

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New York City Consolidation and Competition

• New York population 1900 3,437,000
• Number of newspapers 7
• New York population 2000 8,008,000
• So how many newspapers should they have based on
  population increase?

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Newspaper Scene in New York circa 2000

• Number of newspapers 3
• New York Daily News, New York Post, New York
  Times.
• You can say 4 if you count Newsday which is
  actually a Long Island paper.
• Weeklies Village Voice, New York Observer

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Percent of Daily Newspapers Owned by Largest
Newspaper Groups
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Percent of Daily Circulation Belonging to Largest
Newspaper Groups
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Compare largest groups ownership to circulation
Circulation 69
Ownership 39
So big groups control more readership
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Project for Excellence in Journalism1850 K
Street NW, Suite 850Washington, DC, 20006
Largest newspaper groups means the 22 top
newspaper chains