Newspaper readership has shifted from a mainly print routine toward a mixed print, desktop and mobile pattern. The available measures also show important differences by age, education, geography and the type of news being measured. Historical Pew Research Center figures describe U.S. reading behavior, while the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 provides more recent country comparisons.
Contents
- Print and digital reading in the United States
- How readership changed by age and education
- Community and local newspaper readership
- Newspaper audiences and major titles
- Trust, access and payment for news
- International circulation and industry pressure
Print and digital reading in the United States
Pew Research Center’s 2014 Newspapers Fact Sheet found that 56% of people who consumed a newspaper read it exclusively in print. Another 11% read in print and also used a desktop or laptop computer, while 5% used print and mobile devices. A further 11% used all three formats: print, desktop and mobile. More than eight-in-ten newspaper readers read in print at least sometimes, and only 5% read exclusively on mobile devices.
The following year, the distribution looked different. In 2015, 51% of newspaper consumers read exclusively in print. Desktop-only reading accounted for 5%, mobile-only reading for 5%, and reading across print, mobile and desktop for 7%. These figures describe format combinations among newspaper consumers, so they should not be treated as a single time series with identical definitions across every year.
| Measure | Year | Share | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exclusive print reading | 2014 | 56% | Pew Research Center, Newspapers Fact Sheet, 2015 |
| Print, desktop and mobile | 2014 | 11% | Pew Research Center, Newspapers Fact Sheet, 2015 |
| Exclusive print reading | 2015 | 51% | Pew Research Center, Newspapers Fact Sheet, 2016 |
| Print, mobile and desktop | 2015 | 7% | Pew Research Center, Newspapers Fact Sheet, 2016 |
Earlier Pew measures used a “yesterday” question. In 2008, 39% of Americans said they had read a newspaper yesterday, either in print or online. That included 34% who read just the print version, 14% who read a newspaper online, 9% who read only online, and 5% who read both print and web versions. Online readers made up more than one-third of all newspaper readers in that measure.
The 2006 figures were similar in structure but not identical in wording. That year, 43% of Americans reported reading a paper either in print or on the web yesterday. Thirty-eight percent read the print version, 9% read a newspaper online, 4% read both print and web on the same day, and 5% had only online exposure. These measures show why the wording and reference period matter when comparing newspaper readership statistics.
How readership changed by age and education
The Pew Research Center’s 2006 data show a clear age gradient in typical-day newspaper reading. Among people ages 18 to 29, 29% read a newspaper on a typical day, either in print or online. Within that age group, 9% read a newspaper online on a typical day, while 22% read the newspaper in print on the previous day.
Older groups recorded higher historical print-or-online readership. In 1996, 49% of Americans ages 30 to 49 read a newspaper on a typical day, compared with 40% in 2006. Among people ages 50 to 64, the figure fell from 58% in 1996 to 50% in 2006. For adults ages 65 and over, it declined from 70% to 58% over the same comparison.
Education was associated with substantially different internet newspaper readership in 2006. Sixty-two percent of people with post-graduate education read an internet newspaper on a typical day. The corresponding figure was 15% for college graduates without post-graduate training, 9% for people with some college education, 6% for high school graduates and 2% for adults who had not finished high school.
These education figures are historical and should not be read as current estimates of student or campus readership. They do, however, document how internet newspaper use varied across education groups in the period measured by Pew Research Center.
Community and local newspaper readership
Community newspapers were regularly read by 33% of Americans in 2008, according to the Pew Research Center’s Watching, Reading and Listening to the News. The same source reported 35% in 2006 and 36% in 2004. Across those three observations, regular community newspaper readership was lower in 2008 than in 2004.
Another Pew Research Center measure found that 46% of Americans said they read a daily newspaper regularly in 2000. In 1998, 48% said they had read a newspaper yesterday. These questions are not interchangeable with the community newspaper figures or with the later format-use measures, but they help establish the range of older U.S. readership indicators.
Local news remains a distinct part of the more recent picture. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 U.S. country page reported that local newspapers were trusted by 61% of respondents. Local television news was trusted by 62%, slightly above local newspapers. In the same 2024 U.S. reporting, 68% of respondents said most or all of their local information needs were being met.
For readers following campus and student-life issues, the distinction between local coverage and general news is useful. A local newspaper trust measure does not equal a readership rate, and a measure of whether information needs are met does not identify which format supplied that information. The figures describe different parts of the news environment.
Newspaper audiences and major titles
The 2006 Pew Research Center data also compared newspaper titles among different reader groups. Among print-only newspaper readers, 2% read The New York Times, 2% read The Washington Post and 3% read USA Today. Among Americans who read a paper online yesterday, 18% read The New York Times online, 9% read The Washington Post online and 7% read USA Today online.
Those percentages use different audience descriptions. The print figures refer to print-only newspaper readers, while the online figures refer to Americans who read a paper online yesterday. They therefore show title composition within separate reader groups rather than the total population share for each newspaper.
The later digital transition is also visible in the revenue data. In 2015, 75% of newspapers’ advertising revenue came from non-digital sources, according to Pew Research Center’s Newspapers Fact Sheet. This is an advertising-revenue measure, not a readership measure, but it provides context for the continuing importance of print-era business models during the period when digital reading was already established.
Print newspapers also played a role in election information. In 2015, 36% of U.S. adults said they had learned something about the election in the past week from a print newspaper. The question measures reported learning in a defined week, not daily readership or subscription status.
Trust, access and payment for news
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 reported that 22% of U.S. respondents paid for online news. The country comparisons show wide variation. Payment rates were 40% in Norway, 31% in Sweden, 21% in Australia, 18% in Mexico, 15% in Canada and Argentina, 13% in Germany, 11% in France, 9% in Japan and 8% in the United Kingdom.
| Country or market | Paid for online news in 2024 |
|---|---|
| Norway | 40% |
| Sweden | 31% |
| United States | 22% |
| Australia | 21% |
| Mexico | 18% |
| Canada and Argentina | 15% |
| Germany | 13% |
| France | 11% |
| Japan | 9% |
| United Kingdom | 8% |
Trust also varied across the reported markets. Overall trust in news was 39% in Canada, 35% in Mexico, 32% in the United States and 30% in Argentina. Hungary and Greece were tied at 23% trust in most news most of the time, the lowest level in the report’s sample. These trust measures cover news broadly and are not limited to newspapers.
The report recorded several other indicators relevant to how people encounter news. Thailand had the highest TikTok use for news in the sample at 39%, followed by Kenya at 36%. In Mexico, 47% of news was shared via social, messaging or email. In Spain, the share of people feeling worn out by the news rose from 26% in 2019 to 44% in 2024.
International circulation and industry pressure
The 2024 Reuters Institute country pages show that newspaper readership and publishing conditions differed sharply by market. In the United Kingdom, regional print sales were down 19% in the second half of 2023, while the printed press had 7% weekly reach in the 2024 country page. The Times and Sunday Times had 558,000 digital-only subscribers, and Reach plc announced 450 redundancies after a year of job cuts.
In Japan, newspaper circulation totaled 28.5 million copies in March 2024, down 7.31% from the previous year. Japanese publishers received 124 yen per 1,000 page views, less than a quarter of the advertising revenue earned by portals. Austria still reported one of the highest rates of daily newspaper readership in the world, but weekly readership had halved since 2015.
South Africa’s collective print circulation fell 7.4% year on year in the 2024 reporting. At the same time, News24 passed 100,000 paid subscribers, making it Africa’s largest news website in paid subscriptions. Eighty-one percent of South Africans were concerned about misinformation, up 6 percentage points from the prior year, while the share with at least some interest in politics fell from 81% in 2021 to 70%.
Other country measures point to changing engagement rather than a single global pattern. Argentina’s interest in news had fallen 32 points since 2017, and up to 45% of Argentinians avoided the news. Greece’s ERTNEWS had 19% weekly use among respondents. Germany’s Bildplus had over 700,000 subscribers, while the report listed Germany’s online-news payment rate at 13%.
The Reuters Institute also reported that the United States was projected to have lost a third of its newspapers by the end of 2024, compared with 2005. In 2023, the U.S. news industry shed nearly 2,700 jobs. Together with the local trust, payment and information-need measures, these figures describe a news system in which readership formats, business models and access to local reporting are changing at the same time.