the rise and fall of newspapers a century of power and persuasion
TRANSCRIPT
Chain Chain NewspapersNewspapers
When one owner (individual or corporation) acquires more than one newspaper, it’s called a chain. The larger chains grew until they dominated the market.
For The Spanish-For The Spanish-American War -New American War -New York City -- ca 1896York City -- ca 1896The New York Journal – 700,000
circulation.Pulitzer’s New York World –
800,000 circulation.The New York Sun – 150,000
circulation.
Total circ-- 1,650,000
Against The War -- Against The War -- New York City ca. New York City ca. 18961896
The New York Herald – 100,000 circulation
The New York Post – 25,000New York Tribune – 75,000New York Times – 25,000.
Total circ. 225,000
Pro-war Pro-war outnumbersoutnumbers anti-waranti-war
By 1.4 million readers
These are BIG numbers for 1896
Two Newspapers Two Newspapers Dominate the Dominate the MarketMarketJournal and World 1.5 million circulation
All the rest -- five papers 350,000 circulation
Ownership Ownership TodayToday
1550 U.S. Cities have daily newspapers
100 U.S. Cities have two or more dailies
43 cities have two independent dailies
57 cities have two dailies -- both owned by the same
companyFewer owners, fewer voices.
Year # of chains # of chain # of dailiesowned dailies
1900 8 27 26001930 55 311 19501960 109 552 17631970 157 879 17491990 125 1124 1647
Today 120 1130 1550
Top ChainsTop Chains•Gannett -- 90 (including USA Today, Olympian, etc.)
Dow Jones -- 20 (including Wall Street Journal) Thompson -- 183 dailies (including papers in Canada, Britain, etc.) New York Times --20 (including NYT and Boston Globe) Knight-Ridder -- 31 dailies (including 49% of Seattle Times) Newhouse -- 26 dailies (including Portland) Tribune Co. -- 14 (including Chicago Tribune -- recently acquired Times Mirror with 10 more , including LA Times) Scripps-Howard -- 23 Hearst -- 12 (including PI in Seattle) Cox -- 20 News Corp. -- 3 (Murdoch, includes Boston Herald) Media News Group -- 18 Ingersoll -- 37
Death in the afternoon Death in the afternoon --the decline of --the decline of
afternoon newspapersafternoon newspapers
Television Becomes Advertising Television Becomes Advertising MeccaMecca
•The Year Television First Had More Advertising Revenues Than Newspaper:
1960
Competition
•Big companies swallow little ones
•True competition declines
•The race for profits undermines journalism
New York City – Consolidation and New York City – Consolidation and CompetitionCompetition
New York population 1900: 3,437,000
Number of newspapers: 7 New York population
2000 : 8,008,000 So how many
newspapers should they have based on population increase?
Newspaper Scene in New York circa Newspaper Scene in New York circa 20002000
Number of newspapers: 3
New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times.
You can say 4 if you count Newsday which is actually a Long Island paper.
Weeklies: Village Voice, New York Observer
Percent of Daily Newspapers Percent of Daily Newspapers Owned by Largest Newspaper Owned by Largest Newspaper GroupsGroups
Percent of Daily Circulation Percent of Daily Circulation Belonging to Largest Newspaper Belonging to Largest Newspaper Groups Groups
Compare largest groups ownership to circulation
Ownership: 39%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Circulation: 69%
So big groups control more readership