Audience

Despite talk of newspapers dying, the average circulation of most newspapers in the country has dropped only slightly. The average on weekdays was 38,689 in 1990 and 36,739 in 2005. Sunday circulation is dropping more rapidly.

The readership of Sunday newspapers is now dropping across every age group.

Morning weekday newspapers are making small gains, while evening weekday newspapers are in decline, resulting in a slight net loss in the number of U.S. daily newspapers.

The readership of Sunday newspapers is now dropping across most ethnic groups.

People over 65 years old are more likely to listen to news-talk radio stations than other age groups.

News magazine readers are getting richer. The average income of readers of the news magazines is rising slightly faster than the population overall. In 2005, average income for news magazine readers stood at $67,003.

While cable channels report ratings as simple averages, PEJ believes median is more accurate because it evens out momentary audience spikes. Using either measure, however, the daytime audience for the three cable channels leveled to roughly 1.5 million people in 2006.

At least in recent years, there appears to be a striking inverse relationship between the presidency and opinion magazines. The conservative National Review thrived during the Clinton presidency while the Bush years have proved a boon to the liberal Nation.

Despite a dip in circulation numbers in 2004, the growth in Spanish language newspaper sales stands in stark contrast to the problems of their English language daily newspaper counterparts. 

The fall in network evening news audiences has been clear and relatively steady. In November 1980, 52 million Americans watched the nightly news each night. By November 2006, that number had fallen to 26.1 million.