Digital Media Decimating Print Publishing Revenues

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The explosive growth of digital media and technology continues to have a ruinous impact on print publishing industry revenues, the US Census Bureau said today. The latest Census Bureau Service Annual Survey (SAS) enumerates the financial blows these industries experienced between 2002 and 2020. (Read AutoInformed.com: U.S. Newspapers Continue to Decline in Readership, Employment, Revenue; Newspapers Dying as Technology Companies Grow?)

Estimated Newspaper Publishing revenue dropped by -52% to $22.1 billion. Estimated revenue for Periodical Publishing, which includes magazines, medical and scientific journals, religious and scholastic magazines and other specialty publications fell by -40.5%. Video Tape and Disc Rental revenue decreased by -88.5%.

 Total estimated weekday circulation of U.S. daily newspapers was 55.8 million in 2000 and dropped to 24.2 million by 2020, according to Editor & Publisher and the Pew Research Center. As circulation slid so did revenue: Newspaper Publishing revenue in 2020 was less than half what it was in 2002, dropping from $46.2 billion to $22.1 billion, according to the Census SAS. There was a -27.8% decrease in revenue from 2002 to 2010, and a -33.6% decrease from 2010 to 2020.