Weekday circulation of audited, locally focused newspapers held steady in 2020; picture is less clear for smaller dailies

Pew Research Center graph shows total weekday circulation of audited newspapers in 2020 was 8,323,635.

Have newspapers hit bottom? That is suggested by a graph in the latest Pew Research Center Local Newspapers Fact Sheet. One shows total weekday circulation of locally focused (not national) newspapers was 8,323,635, up 0.5 percent from the 8,280,161 in 2019. However, the figures include only 500-plus papers that underwent circulation audits, which are becoming less frequent, says Penelope Muse Abernathy, visiting journalism professor at Northwestern University. Abernathy told The Rural Blog that most newspapers that once had their circulation audited annually by the Alliance for Audited Media have gone to two- or three-year cycles because of the cost.

Pew graph based on filings by publicly traded newspaper firms

The good news in the Pew report, Abernathy said, is that larger daily papers are showing more ability to convert print subscribers to digital, and continue to show growth in digital advertising revenue. That's a must because print advertising revenue continues to plummet, to the point that total ad revenue of publicly traded newspaper companies was less than circulation revenue for the first time in 2020.

The picture is less clear for daily newspapers that are not audited and not publicly traded, and that are likely to be smaller papers serving more rural areas. "We've been struggling to get good circulation figures," said Abernathy, a former news executive whose work focuses on studying newspaper economics. She will be the leadoff speaker at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America at 1:15 p.m. ET Friday, to be telecast on YouTube at https://ukci.me/ruralj. Several publishers and editors of small dailies will also speak at the Summit, which will run through Saturday afternoon. The Summit is sponsored by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog, and the University of Kentucky College of Communication and Information.