Pew: State of the News Media..Newspapers, Public Radio, Audio

The newspaper industry’s website traffic has again begun to grow, despite declining financial fortunes, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis conducted for its research on the state of the news media. On the whole, the news offerings of U.S. public broadcasters have been marked by relative financial stability, while online audio and podcasting audiences have grown over the last decade.

Since 2004, Pew Research Center has published analyses of key audience and economic indicators for a variety of sectors within the U.S. news media industry, now producing a series of fact sheets showcasing the most important data points for each sector in an easy-to-digest format. The first set for 2021, released today, includes fact sheets on the newspaper, public broadcasting and audio and podcasting news media sectors.

➤Among the key findings for newspapers:

• For the first time in Pew Research Center’s state of the news media analysis, circulation revenue for the newspaper industry was higher than advertising revenue. Total estimated circulation revenue was $11.1 billion, compared with $11.0 billion in 2019. Meanwhile, total estimated advertising revenue in 2020 was $8.8 billion, down 29% from 2019, based on the Center’s analysis of financial statements for publicly traded newspaper companies.
• The estimated total U.S. daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) in 2020 was 24.3 million for weekday and 25.8 million for Sunday, each down 6% from the previous year, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Alliance for Audited Media data – though with some caveats, as detailed in a new post on the Center’s Decoded blog.
• In the fourth quarter of 2020, there was an average of 13.9 million monthly unique visitors (across all devices) to the top 50 U.S. daily newspapers. This is up 14% from 2019, which itself was 5% higher than 2018, according to Comscore data.
• Digital advertising accounted for 39% of newspaper advertising revenue in 2020, based on the Center’s analysis of publicly traded newspaper companies. The portion stood at 35% in 2019 – compared with 17% in 2011, the first year it was possible to perform this analysis.
• In 2020, 30,820 people worked as reporters, editors, photographers, or film and video editors or operators in the newspaper industry, down 12% from 2019 and 57% from 2004, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. Median wages for editors in 2020 were about $50,000, while for reporters, the figure was about $36,000. 
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➤Among the key findings for public broadcasting:

• The top 20 NPR-affiliated public radio stations (by listenership) had on average a total weekly listenership of about 9 million in 2020, down 9% from 2019, according to Nielsen Audio National Regional Database data reported by NPR. (This includes listeners of NPR programming as well as original or other syndicated content aired on these stations.)
• The audience for public television programming increased sharply over the past year. In 2020, the NewsHour program, which airs on PBS, attracted 1.2 million viewers on average, up 18% from the year before, according to Nielsen NPower data reported by PBS NewsHour.
• The financial picture for news outlets in public broadcasting appeared strong both locally and nationally, according to data from NPR, Public Radio Exchange (PRX) and Public Media Futures. At the national level, NPR’s total operating revenue in 2020 was $270.1 million, roughly the same as 2019. PRX was down 10%, falling to about $37.6 million in total revenue for 2020. At the local public radio level, an analysis by Public Media Futures of the public filings provided by 123 of the largest news-oriented licensees (organizations that operate local public radio stations) shows that in 2019 – the last year for which reliable data is available – total revenue for this group was $989.7 million.

➤Among the key findings for audio and podcasting:

• The audience for terrestrial radio remains high, though there was a slight drop in 2020; 83% of Americans ages 12 or older listened to terrestrial radio in a given week in 2020, a figure that dropped slightly from 89% in 2019 according to Nielsen Media Research data published by the Radio Advertising Bureau.
• The percentage of Americans who have listened to a podcast has also substantially increased over the last decade. As of 2021, 41% of Americans ages 12 or older have listened to a podcast in the past month, according to “The Infinite Dial” report by Edison Research and Triton Digital, up from 37% in 2020 and just 9% in 2008.
• The share of the public listening to online audio has plateaued, according to survey data from Edison Research and Triton Digital. As of early 2021, 68% of Americans ages 12 and older had listened to online audio in the past month, while 62% had listened in the past week. This has been about steady since 2019, revealing a plateau after steady year-over-year growth from 2007 to 2018.
• Average radio revenue dropped sharply in 2020 – by 24% – for stations in the all-news format, according to MEDIA Access Pro & BIA Advisory Services data. Average station revenue for stations in the all-news format dropped from $18.1 million in 2019 to $13.9 million in 2020.
• There were 3,360 news employees in the radio broadcasting industry in 2020, about 1,000 fewer than in 2004, when there were 4,290 news employees, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. The median wage in 2020 for news analysts, reporters and journalists in the radio broadcasting industry was about $49,000. Editors in the radio broadcasting industry had a median annual wage of about $79,000.
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Methodology for all three fact sheets: https://www.journalism.org/2021/06/29/state-of-the-news-media-methodology/