Facts About Newspapers 2003

Newspapers continued to be a central part of the media landscape in 2002 as world events demanded the type of in-depth coverage that newspapers have always excelled at providing. In today's digital world, newspapers provide top-quality news and information through a number of vehicles, including the Internet and mobile devices, as well as the traditional printed product.

Eight in 10 adults (79.9 percent) in the top 50 U.S. markets read a newspaper during the course of a week, according to the Spring 2003 Competitive Media Index.
More than half of all adults (55.1 percent) in the top 50 markets read a daily newspaper every weekday, and nearly two-thirds (63.1 percent) read one each Sunday.
Newspaper advertising expenditures for 2002 totaled $44.1 billion.
Retail ad spending was $21 billion. Classified expenditures totaled $15.9 billion and national was $7.2 billion.
Newspapers' share of $44.1 billion of advertising spending gave the industry an estimated 18.6 percent of all ad expenditures in 2002.
Nationally, more than 55 million newspapers are sold daily with an average of 2.3 readers per copy. And on Sunday over 59 million newspapers are sold with an average of 2.4 readers per copy.
More than 2,300 daily and weekly newspapers in the U.S. have sites on the World Wide Web. Many of them can be accessed through links via the NAA Web site.
Visitors to newspapers' Web sites say these sites are among their most-used media sources during the workday, according to a recent study distributed by NAA. Forty-nine percent spend time on these sites between the hours of 8 and 11 a.m.
Eighty-three percent of newspaper Web site customers cite these online destinations as their top Internet source for local news and information.
Two-thirds (66 percent) of all online newspaper users visit a newspaper Web site at least once a day. Half of those visit several times a day.
Two-hundred and sixty newspapers surveyed for NAA's Capital Equipment Expenditures Survey indicate they plan to increase overall spending on equipment and technology by nearly 10 percent in 2003.
In 2002, newspaper industry leaders and NAA representatives held a series of meetings with Russian media executives and U.S. and Russian government officials, including Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, as part of the Russian-American Media Entrepreneurship Dialogue. This White House initiative was designed to bring the expertise and experience of American media executives in operating economically independent broadcast and newspaper outlets to their Russian colleagues.