Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Since 2004, Pew Research Center has issued an annual report on key audience and economic indicators for a variety of sectors within the U.S. news media industry. These data speak to the shifting ways in which Americans seek out news and information, how news organizations get their revenue, and the resources available to American journalists as they seek to inform the public about important events of the day. The press is sometimes called the fourth branch of government, but in the U.S., it’s also very much a business – one whose ability to serve the public is dependent on its ability to attract eyeballs and dollars.
Over the years, the Center’s approach to these indicators has evolved along with the industry, carefully considering the metrics, sectors and format in which the data appear. Instead of a single summary report, our approach is to roll out a series of fact sheets showcasing the most important current and historical data points for each sector – in an easy-to-digest format – a few at a time. (State of the News Media reports from 2004-2017 are archived as PDFs and available here.)
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Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
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Audiences for nearly every major sector of the U.S. news media fell in 2017 except for radio. Cable news revenue continued to rise, as did digital ad revenue.
Newsroom employment across the United States continues to decline, driven primarily by job losses at newspapers. And even though digital-native news outlets have experienced some recent growth in employment, too few newsroom positions were added to make up for recent losses in the broader industry.
Newspaper layoffs have far from abated in the past year, and digital-native news outlets are also suffering losses. At least 36% of the largest U.S. newspapers and at least 23% of the highest-traffic digital-native news outlets experienced layoffs between January 2017 and April 2018.
On a typical weekday, three-quarters of U.S. Latinos get their news from internet sources, nearly equal to the share who do so from television, according to a 2016 survey of Latino adults by Pew Research Center.
Just 50% of U.S. adults now get news regularly from television, down from 57% a year prior in early 2016.
Read 10 key findings from recent Pew Research Center reports about today’s digital news media landscape.
As of August 2017, 43% of Americans report often getting news online, just 7 points lower than the 50% who often get news on television.
Roughly two-thirds of Americans ages 65 and older now get news on a mobile device (67%), a 24-percentage-point increase over the past year.
Some major newspapers reported a sharp jump in digital subscriptions, but the industry as a whole faced ongoing challenges in 2016.
As of 2016, Sinclair, Nexstar, Gray, Tegna and Tribune owned an estimated 37% of all full-power local TV stations in the country.
