American newspaper circulation dropped almost seventy percent between 1950 and 2010

Evidence

In its heyday, what is today called the American “prestige press” (the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal) and network television (ABC, CBS, and NBC) were the main sources for news. “In 1950, the average daily total paid circulation for U.S. daily newspapers was 53.8 million (equivalent to 123.6 per cent of households).” Think about that for a minute. That is over 100 percent. So some households were subscribing to not one but two newspapers. “By 2010, the average daily total paid circulation of U.S. daily newspapers was about 43.4 million (equivalent to 36.7 per cent of households).” Think about that too; that means a loss of readership of almost 70 percent. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 125

Categorization

• CANDY: A crisp, striking number pair (123.6% of households in 1950, 36.7% in 2010) that makes for a neat party fact about the scale of print decline.
• XREF: connects to: Local newspaper FOIA requests dropped by about 50 percent by 2010. — David E Pozen; Michael Schudson, Troubling Transparency- The History and…, 587; Newspaper circulation, revenue, and staff collapsed sharply since 2014 — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 185

Broader Connections

• Newspaper circulation, revenue, and staff collapsed sharply since 2014 #corroborates (0.80) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 185
• Local newspaper FOIA requests dropped by about 50 percent by 2010. #corroborates (0.78) — David E Pozen; Michael Schudson, Troubling Transparency- The History and…, 587