Press Gazette: Top U.S. papers lose 20% of weekday print circulation

The top 25 biggest U.S. newspapers have lost 20% of their weekday print circulation since COVID-19 started, according to Press Gazette, which did an analysis of Alliance for Audited Media data.

In the first quarter of 2019, the 25 newspapers had a combined circulation of 4.7 million. A year later, the figure had dropped by 11% to 4.2 million, says Press Gazette. The most recent figures for these titles show a combined circulation of 3.4 million, a drop of 20% in a year.

See more here.

How Covid-19 affected the print circulations of America’s largest 25 newspapers

Average Monday-Friday print circulations, according to Alliance for Audited Media data

Title	Q1 2019	Q1 2020	Q4 2020/Q1 2021	Lost since Covid-19 (after Q1 2020)
Wall Street Journal	1,005,410	994,600	786,599	208,000 (21%)
New York Times	465,959	410,562	362,763	48,000 (12%)
USA Today	580,518	486,579	183,270	303,000 (62%)
Washington Post	231,169	206,824	180,159	27,000 (13%)
Los Angeles Times	226,444	196,588	164,845	32,000 (16%)
New York Post	191,495	162,478	149,614	13,000 (8%)
Tampa Bay Times**	148,593	137,590	137,803	No change**
Chicago Tribune	160,542	130,357	118,572	12,000 (9%)
Newsday (Long Island)*	139,275	123,905	118,379	6,000 (5%)
Star Tribune (Minneapolis)	137,180	123,881	114,697	9,000 (7%)
Seattle Times***	119,034	107,882	96,413	11,000 (11%)
Honolulu Star-Advertiser*	110,149	107,070	93,587	13,000 (13%)
Arizona Republic	125,074	103,264	82,861	20,000 (20%)
Houston Chronicle	100,910	86,334	78,112	8,000 (10%)
Boston Globe	98,976	84,834	77,679	7,000 (8%)
Philadelphia Inquirer	103,219	87,981	76,797	11,000 (13%)
Dallas Morning News	94,210	80,904	72,909	8,000 (10%)
San Francisco Chronicle	93,030	81,647	68,174	13,000 (17%)
Daily News (New York)	121,750	96,848	67,983	29,000 (30%)
Buffalo News	87,222	75,783	65,611	10,000 (13%)
Denver Post	88,638	73,154	62,431	11,000 (15%)
Chicago Sun-Times	84,379	74,977	61,825	13,000 (18%)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel	75,184	63,784	55,291	8,000 (13%)
St Louis Post-Dispatch	74,226	62,404	54,512	8,000 (13%)
Star-Ledger (New Jersey)	76,773	62,745	53,069	10,000 (15%)
Total	4,739,359	4,222,975	3,383,955	839,000 (20%)

* The latest figures for Newsday and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser are for the six months to September 2020 rather than Q4 2020/ Q1 2021 ** The Tampa Bay Times switched from a daily to Sunday and Wednesday newspaper in Q2 2020 *** The Seattle Times does not report an average weekday circulation figure to the AAM. We have used its average Wednesday circulation instead.

Table: William Turvill, Press Gazette  Source: Alliance for Audited Media  Get the data