The slowdown spreads, the economy sinks, and advertising plummets as it did in 1991. I don't expect these scenarios to play out, but economic history reveals even more unlikely tales. They can use revenue from a healthy economy to invest in the medium and strengthen their franchises. Twenty percent of newspaper revenue comes from readers and 80 percent from advertisers. The value of readers is not just their payments for the newspaper, but also the stream of money paid by advertisers to reach readers.
Research shows that U.S. dailies reach more than two readers per copy.
This implies that more than half of our readers do not directly pay for our products, though advertisers pay to reach these readers. That is why we sell readership against the broadcast concepts of viewership or listenership. Copyright 1998, Newspaper Association of America. All rights reserved. This article may be transmitted or redistributed provided that the article and this notice remain intact.