The decline in readers has also meant a decline in the number of newspapers in America.
From World War II until 1980, the number of newspapers remained static - at about 1,750 newspapers in the United States. Some big-city newspapers died, but suburban papers and small community dailies took their place. After 35 years of television, the cold war, Vietnam, the Me Decade, Howard Cosell and the "Gong Show," in 1980 there were 1,745 daily newspapers in the United States, only four fewer than the number in 1945.
After 1980, however, the situation changed, and the number of newspapers began an uninterrupted annual decline (-0.8 percent). By 2002, there were just 1,457 papers left in the country, 17 percent fewer than 22 years before.13 [1]