Newspaper Publishers (U.S.) — NAICS 513110

An investor's primer for a general audience. Core figures come from U.S. federal statistics; company figures come from filings; forward-looking statements are labeled as judgments, not facts.

1. Overview

Newspaper publishers gather news, write and edit it, sell advertising around it, and deliver the result to readers — in print, online, or both. It is one of the oldest information businesses in America and, in aggregate, one of the most challenged. Federal data put industry revenue at roughly $23.2 billion in 2022 [1], and the market has been shrinking at a low-single-digit annual rate as print declines faster than digital grows [10].

The important thing to understand is that this is not one industry but two stories under one code. A small number of national and specialty brands (The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal) have rebuilt themselves into profitable paid-digital franchises, while thousands of local papers are being cut for cash, sold in distress, or shut down — the U.S. has lost roughly a third of its newspapers since 2005 [7]. The strongest businesses pair a differentiated local or specialty franchise with recurring reader revenue, low churn, and manageable print obligations; the weakest pair declining print advertising with heavy debt and high delivery costs.

Access differs by investor type:

• Public-market route: a short list of pure or near-pure plays — The New York Times (NYSE: NYT), News Corp (Nasdaq: NWSA/NWS), USA TODAY Co. (NYSE: TDAY, formerly Gannett), Lee Enterprises (Nasdaq: LEE), and niche Daily Journal Corp. (Nasdaq: DJCO). Most local-newspaper equity has already been taken private or delisted.
• Private route (broader): distressed roll-ups run by financial owners (Alden Global Capital, Chatham Asset Management), family-held groups (Hearst, Advance), billionaire-owned metros (Washington Post, Los Angeles Times), direct purchases of small community papers, private credit to leveraged chains, and a growing nonprofit/civic layer that preserves reporting but does not offer conventional equity returns.

2. What it is and how it's structured

NAICS 513110 covers establishments whose primary business is publishing newspapers — news gathering, editorial, ad sales, and production — whether in print, electronic form, or exclusively on the Internet [4]. (NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System, the federal scheme used to organize business statistics.) That last clause matters: the 2022 NAICS revision moved digital-only newspapers that had been lumped in with internet publishing and broadcasting into the newspaper code, so a purely online newspaper now counts here [5]. Because of that shift, comparisons with older industry series should be made with caution.

What the code excludes (and where those activities sit instead):

These lines matter because a newspaper company often owns printing plants, marketing agencies, software, events, or real estate that are economically important but sit outside the narrow industry code [4].

Ownership mix: a handful of large chains at the top and a very long tail of small operators at the bottom. Census counts about 3,891 firms running roughly 5,851 establishments [1][2]. Ownership types run from public companies, to hedge-fund and private-equity chains, to family dynasties, to billionaire-owned metros, to a rising number of nonprofits (for example, The Salt Lake Tribune converted to nonprofit status). Government does not operate in this industry, and unlike broadcasting there is no federal license — anyone can start a newspaper. The federal statistics for this code do not break out public/private, family, sponsor, or nonprofit ownership; that must be assessed company by company.

3. How big it is

Federal figures (ground truth). These combine County Business Patterns (CBP) data for 2023 with Economic Census concentration data for 2022, so they should not be read as one perfectly matched reporting period:

(CR4/CR8 are concentration ratios — the combined revenue share of the top 4 or 8 firms. HHI is the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, a standard concentration gauge. SBA is the Small Business Administration; its size standard is a financing/eligibility threshold, not the size of a typical publisher.)

Context around the count: the U.S. has roughly 5,600 mastheads left — about 938 dailies and ~4,600 weekly or non-daily papers — down from about 8,900 in 2005 [7]. Northwestern University's Medill program (State of Local News 2025) counted 136 newspaper closures in the past year, 213 counties with no local news source and 1,524 counties with only one, and estimated that about 50 million Americans now have limited or no access to local news; more than 200 papers changed hands during the year [7]. Medill's researchers also estimate the country lost around 43,000 newspaper journalists between 2005 and 2023 [7]. Total daily print-and-digital circulation was about 20.9 million in 2022, down from 28.6 million on weekdays as recently as 2018 [8].

Undercount / measurement caveats. The establishment count (5,851) tracks physical operating locations and lines up reasonably with the masthead count; the firm count (3,891) is smaller because one company can run dozens of papers. The 91,350 employment figure covers all newspaper payroll — reporters, ad sales, pressroom, delivery, administration — so it is far larger than newsroom headcount alone. CBP is an employer-based series: it excludes the self-employed, businesses without employees or an employer ID, and most government workers, and can miss very small establishments — relevant for one-person publications, volunteer operations, and tiny digital startups [6]. And because the 2022 NAICS revision now folds digital-only newspapers into this code, the revenue figure captures more of the online-news economy than older data did, yet digital-native outlets that call themselves "sites," plus news operations run inside broadcast or magazine companies, still land in other codes and are not counted here. The federal file provides no industry-wide profit, cash-flow, circulation, digital-subscriber, or advertising-mix data — those are company-by-company facts.

4. The investable universe

The set of clean public plays is small and has been shrinking as papers are taken private.

Recently removed from the public menu: DallasNews Corp. (The Dallas Morning News) was bought by Hearst for $16.50/share and delisted in 2025 after topping a competing Alden bid [19].

Major private and nonprofit owners — large but not directly investable via public equity:

• Alden Global Capital (MediaNews Group / Tribune Publishing) — the #2 owner by circulation, with the Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, New York Daily News, and Boston Herald; bought Tribune for ~$633 million in 2021 and is known for deep newsroom cuts [20].
• Chatham Asset Management — owns McClatchy (Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Sacramento Bee), acquired out of McClatchy's 2020 Chapter 11 bankruptcy [21].
• Hearst — family-controlled private group with the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, and (from 2025) The Dallas Morning News [19][23].
• Advance Publications (Newhouse family) — privately held newspapers and digital local brands operated through Advance Local (Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Newark Star-Ledger, and others) [22].
• Billionaire-owned metros: The Washington Post (Nash Holdings / Jeff Bezos) [24], the Los Angeles Times (Patrick Soon-Shiong) [25], and The Boston Globe (John Henry) [26].
• Nonprofit / civic owners: The Philadelphia Inquirer (Lenfest Institute) [27] and the Tampa Bay Times (Poynter Institute) [28].

For context: Berkshire Hathaway, once a newspaper owner, sold its papers to Lee in 2020 — a telling exit by a value investor.

5. How the money works

Newspapers run on a stack of revenue streams:

1. Reader revenue — digital-only subscriptions, print subscriptions, bundles, single-copy sales, and institutional/group subscriptions.
2. Advertising — print display, digital display, programmatic, classified and legal notices, sponsorships, and local marketing services.
3. Other — licensing and syndication, commercial printing, events, content-management services, and branded products.

For most of the last century advertising paid the bills — as much as ~80% of revenue at the peak — and subscriptions were priced below the cost of producing and delivering the paper, essentially to build an audience advertisers would pay to reach [11]. That model inverted. Reader revenue overtook advertising nationally around 2020 (roughly $11.1 billion circulation vs. $8.8 billion advertising) as print ad dollars collapsed and publishers pushed paid digital subscriptions [10].

The New York Times illustrates the transition: in 2025 company-wide subscription revenue was $1.951 billion (of which $1.434 billion digital-only and $516 million print), while advertising was $566 million — reader revenue now dwarfs ads [12].

Metrics owners actually watch:

• Digital-only paid subscribers, net additions, and churn — the growth engine. Introductory-price roll-offs make churn the number that decides whether net adds stick.
• ARPU (average revenue per user) — how much each subscriber pays; publishers try to raise price without losing volume.
• Digital revenue mix — the share of revenue coming from digital rather than print (Lee ~53%; USA TODAY Co. targeting a majority; News Corp's Dow Jones already predominantly digital) [16][14][13].
• Print circulation, copies per issue, delivery cost, and print frequency; advertising split by channel; local-advertiser retention and concentration; and free cash flow after capital spending, pensions, leases, and debt service.

Cost structure and margins. Editorial staff, technology, product, sales, leases, and corporate overhead are relatively fixed; newsprint, ink, printing, postage, delivery, and commissions vary with print volume — roughly a quarter of expenses in production and another tenth in physical distribution at a print-heavy publisher [11]. Because each printed copy must be delivered, print scales badly, while digital delivery is near-zero incremental cost; the transition trades high-margin print dollars for lower digital ones but with far better unit economics at scale. That is why the winning strategy is bundling and diversification — the Times sells one bundle across news, Cooking, Games, Wirecutter, and The Athletic to lift ARPU and cut churn [12]; Dow Jones leans on high-renewal business information [13]; chains add digital-marketing services and events. A publisher can lift margins by cutting print frequency or outsourcing production, but those moves can weaken the product and shrink reach.

For the thousands of small papers the economics are simpler and grimmer: local retail and classified advertising (classifieds long ago lost to Craigslist and others) has thinned, so the play by financial owners is to consolidate back-office and printing across many titles, harvest declining print cash flow, and cut costs faster than revenue falls. Small community papers change hands on modest revenue multiples, often in distress [11]. The takeaway: total revenue is less informative than the durability and margin of the revenue mix — a smaller publisher with recurring reader revenue can be stronger than a larger one dependent on print advertising.

6. What drives demand

• Reader willingness to pay for journalism — now the core driver. National and specialty brands with distinctive, must-have content (financial news, investigative reporting, sports, lifestyle/games) can charge; commodity local news struggles to. Local government, schools, housing, crime, weather, elections, and sports create recurring information needs that a dominant local title can monetize.
• The advertising cycle — still meaningful for local papers and structurally weak: ad budgets keep migrating to Google, Meta, and other platforms, leaving newspapers a shrinking slice. Local retail, real-estate, automotive, employment, and political advertising swing with the economy, interest rates, and elections.
• Direct vs. platform access. The key demand question is not whether people consume news but whether they will come to a publisher directly and pay. Pew Research reports that in 2025, 36% of U.S. adults got local news at least sometimes from a local daily newspaper while 42% used an online-only local source; among local-daily users, 68% primarily accessed the paper online, up from 43% in 2018 [9]. Referral and search traffic from Google and social feeds still moves demand sharply (see Risks).
• Big news cycles — elections, crises, and major events drive engagement and sign-ups, making revenue somewhat lumpy.
• Demographics — print readership skews old and is declining; the durable audience is digital, favoring publishers who have built strong digital products.

7. Regulation

Newspapers are among the least-regulated businesses in America. The First Amendment protects the press, there is no federal license to publish (unlike broadcast, which the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, licenses), and content is largely unregulated. The relevant policy action is elsewhere:

• Merger review. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) apply antitrust law to newspaper combinations. The 2023 Merger Guidelines flag a structural concern when a deal leaves a market above an HHI of 1,800 and raises the index by more than 100 points [29]. Nationally the industry is unconcentrated (HHI 522 [1]), so what matters is the local market — most towns that still have a paper have exactly one, so local markets are frequently monopolies even where the national industry is fragmented.
• Joint operations. The Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 permits certain "joint operating agreements" (JOAs) for financially distressed papers, letting two titles in one city share business operations while keeping separate newsrooms — a relic of the two-paper-town era, now mostly gone [30].
• Platform bargaining. Proposals to force tech platforms to pay publishers for news have advanced abroad (Australia, Canada) and been attempted in the U.S. The federal Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which would let publishers collectively negotiate with Google and Meta, has been introduced repeatedly but not passed. In California, a proposed bill was shelved in 2024 in favor of a deal under which Google committed to roughly $250 million over five years (including an AI initiative) to fund local news — an outcome journalism unions criticized as too small [32].
• AI and copyright — the fastest-moving front. The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft over the use of its articles to train AI (artificial intelligence) models, and publishers such as Penske Media have sued Google over "AI Overviews" that answer queries without sending readers to the source [33]. The U.S. Copyright Office's AI initiative is separately examining copyrightability and the use of copyrighted works to train AI systems [31]. How courts and licensing markets resolve "fair use" of news content by AI is a genuine open question with real revenue at stake.
• Public notices, postal, and privacy. State and local rules requiring publication of legal notices support print and digital notice revenue, but legislative changes can remove it. Distribution of print copies is sensitive to U.S. Postal Service periodical rates, and newsprint costs have been hit by tariff episodes on Canadian paper. As publishers lean on first-party subscriber data, federal and state privacy laws add compliance obligations.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

By federal math the industry looks unconcentrated: the four largest firms hold about 41% of revenue, the top eight about 54%, and the HHI sits at just 522 — well below the 1,800 level the 2023 Merger Guidelines treat as highly concentrated [1][29]. But that national number is misleading, because competition happens locally, and most surviving-paper towns are one-paper towns.

Competition today is layered: local papers face television, radio, newsletters, community forums, government websites, and digital-only outlets; national publishers face social platforms, search engines, podcasts, streaming, and creator-led media; and advertisers weigh newspaper audiences against large digital ad networks with superior targeting and measurement. In short, the real competition is no longer other newspapers — it is every other claim on attention and ad dollars.

Scale matters in printing, distribution, technology, audience analytics, sales, and content licensing, which creates a rationale for consolidation — but excessive cost-cutting hollows out the newsroom, weakens the product, and accelerates subscriber loss. The dominant structural story is consolidation among the survivors and closure of the rest: New Media/GateHouse merged with Gannett in 2019 to form today's largest chain; Alden bought Tribune in 2021; McClatchy went bankrupt and passed to Chatham in 2020; Lee absorbed Berkshire's papers in 2020 and was recapitalized under new control in 2026 [14][16][17][20][21]. Judgment: consolidation will continue but will not produce one uniform market — expect a mix of scaled national subscription platforms, regional chains, local monopolies, specialty publishers, and small community operators with very different economics.

9. Risks

• Secular print decline — circulation and print advertising fall every year; the open question is only how fast, and whether digital growth can offset it.
• Platform dependence and the digital-ad squeeze — Google and Meta capture the majority of digital advertising, capping what publishers can earn online, and changes to search, social, or AI distribution can cut traffic and inventory overnight. News Corp has cited algorithm-related traffic declines as a factor in its news-media advertising [13].
• AI and zero-click search — the newest and possibly largest threat. Zero-click search — queries answered on the results page without a click to the source — rose from roughly 56% to 69% in a year, and most top news domains have seen traffic decline; AI Overviews and chatbots substitute for visiting the source, undercutting both ad and subscription funnels [33].
• Churn and price resistance — subscription growth can be offset by cancellations and promotional roll-offs, and consumers cap how many news subscriptions they hold, favoring a few winners [12].
• Leverage and refinancing — several chains carry heavy buyout debt; rising rates and falling revenue have repeatedly forced restructurings and bankruptcies (McClatchy, Tribune's predecessor).
• Cost inflation — newsprint, labor, printing, delivery, postage, healthcare, pensions, and technology can rise faster than prices.
• Demographic cliff — the paying print audience is aging out faster than digital replaces it, except at the largest brands.
• Cyber, governance, and reputation — subscriber databases and payment/ad systems are attractive targets, while owner influence, factual errors, polarization, and advertiser pressure can erode the trust that paid demand depends on.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public routes. The cleanest thesis is the scaled paid-digital winner — The New York Times (NYT) is the clearest example of the flywheel working: bundle-driven ARPU, low churn, growing digital revenue [12]. News Corp (NWSA/NWS) offers premium business news (WSJ/Dow Jones) inside a diversified media-and-data company [13]. USA TODAY Co. (TDAY) is a leveraged turnaround on completing the print-to-digital shift across a big local footprint [14]. Lee Enterprises (LEE) is a micro-cap, now under new controlling ownership, for investors comfortable with distress [16][17]. Daily Journal (DJCO) is a niche publisher-plus-software situation. For any of these, the first task is to isolate actual newspaper exposure from adjacent businesses, then judge recurring subscription growth, churn, ARPU, print decline, digital advertising, marketing-services margins, and free cash flow after pensions, leases, and debt. Valuation tools such as EV/EBITDA (enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) and free-cash-flow yield are useful only after normalizing restructuring charges, asset sales, pension effects, and the continuing decline of print. The group ranges from a growth-priced brand to deep-value/distressed situations, so reserve multiples and dividend analysis for each name's own filings.

Private routes. Direct ownership of community papers is possible (they trade on small-business marketplaces at modest revenue multiples, often in distress) [11]; institutional capital participates mainly through the financial owners rolling up chains (Alden, Chatham) and through private credit to leveraged operators. Market-specific diligence matters most: Is the title the dominant local source or one of several interchangeable outlets? What share of revenue is recurring subscription, and are digital subscribers growing without heavy promotional spend? How much print volume can be removed without damaging the franchise? Are printing, delivery, pension, lease, and debt obligations separable from the operating business? Are public notices, commercial printing, or events durable? A parallel, largely non-return layer is expanding — nonprofit newsrooms, philanthropy (the American Journalism Project and similar funders), and civic ownership — which reshapes the competitive landscape but does not provide conventional equity returns.

Outlook (forward-looking judgment). The base case is continued contraction in print and traditional advertising alongside selective growth in paid digital subscriptions, specialty information, local marketing, and events. The industry is likely to keep bifurcating: a smaller group of strong subscription franchises may compound, while much of local publishing keeps consolidating, cutting, and closing. AI is the swing factor — a clear threat to referral traffic and to the value of open-web content, but also a potential cost-saver and a source of new licensing revenue if courts and deals settle in publishers' favor. The durable model that emerges is reader-revenue-led, bundled, and digital-first; scale, brand strength, and a defensible audience relationship — not print — decide the winners. Expect more take-private deals to keep thinning the public universe.

---

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Comparative Statistics and Concentration by Largest Firms, NAICS 513110 (Newspaper Publishers) (receipts, firm count, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, NAICS 513110, 2023 (establishments, employment, annual and Q1 payroll). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
3. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards (NAICS 513110), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
4. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 NAICS Definition — 513110 Newspaper Publishers (includes print, electronic, and Internet-only newspapers). https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=513110&input=513110&year=2022
5. U.S. Census Bureau, NAICS Changes Will Begin to Be Reflected in Census Bureau's Economic Surveys and Programs, 2024. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/11/naics-changes.html
6. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns Methodology. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
7. Northwestern University / Medill Local News Initiative, The State of Local News 2025 (masthead and daily counts, closures, news deserts, journalist losses, ownership changes). https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/2025/
8. Pew Research Center, Newspapers Fact Sheet (State of the News Media) (circulation trends). https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers/
9. Pew Research Center, Local News Fact Sheet, 2025 (local-news consumption by source and platform). https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/local-news-fact-sheet/
10. Grand View Research, U.S. Newspaper Market Size & Share Report, 2024 (market size, growth rate, circulation-vs-advertising crossover). https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-newspaper-market
11. DealStream, Newspaper Publishers — Valuation Rules of Thumb (cost structure, per-subscriber revenue, deal multiples), n.d. https://dealstream.com/industry-guides/newspaper-publishers/rules-of-thumb
12. The New York Times Company, Form 10-K, Fiscal Year 2025 (SEC) (revenue, subscribers, subscription and advertising revenue). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/71691/000007169126000011/nyt-20251231.htm
13. News Corporation, 2025 Annual Report (Dow Jones/WSJ, digital mix, real estate and books, algorithm-related traffic note). https://newscorp.com/app/uploads/2025/10/News-Corp-2025-Annual-Report.pdf
14. USA TODAY Co. (formerly Gannett), Form 10-K, 2025 (SEC) (revenue, digital mix, LocaliQ/Newsquest). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579684/000157968426000010/R10.htm
15. USA TODAY Co., Name and ticker change from Gannett (GCI) to USA TODAY Co. (TDAY), Form 8-K (SEC), Nov. 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579684/000157968425000083/tday-20251114.htm
16. Lee Enterprises, Form 10-K, 2025 (SEC) (digital-only subscribers, digital revenue share). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/58361/000005836125000040/lee-20250928.htm
17. Poynter, "Florida billionaire takes control of Lee Enterprises," 2026 (Hoffmann control, debt reduction). https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2026/florida-billionaire-takes-control-of-lee-enterprises/
18. Daily Journal Corporation, Form 10-K, 2025 (SEC) (publishing plus Journal Technologies software). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/783412/000143774925038836/djco20250930_10k.htm
19. DallasNews Corporation, Merger with Hearst / About (Hearst acquisition of The Dallas Morning News at $16.50/share, delisting, competing Alden bid), 2025. https://www.dallasnewscorporation.com/about/
20. Tribune Publishing, Stockholders Approve Proposed Merger with Alden Global Capital, 2021. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tribune-publishing-stockholders-approve-proposed-merger-with-alden-global-capital-301297192.html
21. McClatchy, McClatchy Acquired by Chatham Asset Management LLC, 2020. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mcclatchy-acquired-by-chatham-asset-management-llc-301124648.html
22. Advance Local, About Us (Advance Publications / Newhouse family). https://www.advancelocal.com/about/
23. Axios, Majority of Hearst Profits Now B2B, CEO Says, 2024. https://www.axios.com/2024/11/26/hearst-media-profit-b2b
24. The Washington Post, About / Corporate (Nash Holdings, Jeff Bezos). https://corporate.washingtonpost.com/about
25. Associated Press, Billionaire Owner of the Los Angeles Times (Patrick Soon-Shiong), 2025. https://apnews.com/article/1d498106a3e83ea12f227c69cfb84cf0
26. The Boston Globe, John Henry's Purchase of The Boston Globe Completed, 2013. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/10/24/john-henry-purchase-boston-globe-completed-after-worcester-judge-lifts-injunction/mfkl8W0Ficsvg4gI8I4y1I/story.html
27. Lenfest Institute for Journalism, About (nonprofit owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer). https://www.lenfestinstitute.org/about/
28. Tampa Bay Times / Poynter Institute, About the Tampa Bay Times (nonprofit ownership). https://www.tampabay.com/about/
29. U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, Merger Guidelines, 2023 (HHI thresholds). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2023_merger_guidelines_final_12.18.2023.pdf
30. U.S. Department of Justice, Dynamic Competition in the Newspaper Industry (Newspaper Preservation Act / joint operating agreements), 2010. https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/speech/dynamic-competition-newspaper-industry
31. U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence initiative, 2025. https://www.copyright.gov/ai/
32. CNN Business / CalMatters, Google–California journalism funding deal (California Journalism Preservation Act shelved), 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/21/media/google-california-pay-newsrooms-journalists-content-deal/index.html
33. eMarketer / Press Gazette, Publisher lawsuits over Google AI Overviews; zero-click search and news-traffic data, 2025. https://www.emarketer.com/content/google-faces-first-major-publisher-lawsuit-over-ai-overviews