What's a weekly newspaper? What's a daily? Changes in the industry may be turning the terms into anachronisms

The State Journal in Frankfort, Ky., the state capital, once
published six days a week; now it prints two days a week. 

What's a weekly newspaper? One that publishes three or fewer times a week, per the longstanding industry convention? What about the small dailies that now print only two or three times a week but publish new information online most days? Which raises the question, what's a daily newspaper?

"Rising costs and shrinking demand for printed publications have changed the very definition of 'daily' newspapers," reports Greg Burns of the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University. "Publishers from coast to coast – at weeklies as well as dailies – are reducing the days of the week they print, filling the gaps with e-editions and around-the-clock online access. The once-routine, seven-day-a-week print run is disappearing, with 42 of the largest 100 newspapers now delivering a print edition six or fewer times a week. Eleven of those largest dailies publish in printed form only one or two times a week.

"Some weeklies, too, are cutting back on their publishing frequency from three to two times to only once a week, even as many others supplement their print editions with daily subscriber e-newsletters – similarly defying the traditional idea of what makes a 'weekly' a weekly." The terminologies, used since daily papers began in the U.S. more than two centuries ago, may now be anachronistic.

“If you’re publishing new information daily, how much longer are we even going to use the terms daily and weekly?” ask Sara April of the newspaper brokerage Dirks, Van Essen & April. More importantly, she told Burns that some weeklies are now more valuable than dailies.

"While thousands of weeklies have folded since 2005, many in affluent, growing markets maintain strong cash flow and command relatively high valuations when sold," Burns writes. "In contrast to large dailies, which rely on subscribers for more than half of their revenue, weeklies continue to receive most of their revenue from local businesses that buy advertising and services from them and sponsor their various print and digital publications."

Burns' story is part of the State of Local News 2022 report from Northwestern's Medill School.