- The New York Times said earlier this month that it passed $800 million in annual digital revenue, most of which came from the 5 million+ people that now subscribe to the paper’s digital subscription offering.
- The Wall Street Journal said last week that it topped 2 million digital subscriptions for the first time.
- The Washington Post has been profitable for the past several years under the ownership of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and has added dozens of positions to its newsroom in the past two years.
By the numbers: The past two decades have been an especially brutal time for the newspaper business. While some traditional ad businesses, like television and radio, have plateaued in the digital era, newspapers have completely fallen out.
- Since 2005, newspapers have lost more than $35 billion in ad revenue, according to a report from PEN America.
- Since 2004, newspapers have lost nearly half (47%) of all newsroom staff and nearly 1,800 newspapers — about 20% of the estimated national total — have closed.
- Overall, newspaper guru Ken Doctor estimates that there have been about 20 newspaper bankruptcies since the Great Recession, many of which impacted family-owned newspaper businesses.