Newsprint is a grade of paper used primarily for printing newspapers, advertising inserts and advertising mailers. It comes not in sheets but in huge, long rolls for use in web offset, letterpress, and flexographic printers. As the digitizing of information has advanced, it will come as no surprise to see that the demand for newsprint has been on the decline. We made a graph to show how the value of newsprint shipments by the paper industry have fared over the last fifteen years in the United States. The newsprint industry is designated as NAICS 322122 by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Since the majority of newsprint is used in the production of newspapers, the decline of the newspaper industry is mirrored in the decline of newsprint production. Among the factors causing a decline in the newspaper industry are a declining readership, particularly that of young adults, the rise of digital editions for which paid subscriptions are far less, and the decline in advertising revenue that has resulted as advertisers’ budgets are being split among a growing number of media outlets, many online. For figures on the newspaper industry, check our earlier posts on that market, here.

Today’s market size is the value of U.S. newsprint shipments at the wholesale level in 1998 (a peak year for shipments) and 2011. Worth noting is the fact that declines in newsprint have exceeded declines in newspaper circulation during this period—46% decline in newsprint shipments versus 21% decline for daily newspaper circulation—suggesting that the papers that are in circulation are not only fewer than before, but have fewer pages as well.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1998 and 2011
Market size: $5.42 billion and $2.92 billion respectively
Source: “Value of Shipments for Product Classes,” Annual Survey of Manufactures, editions: 2001, 2005, 2008 and 2011. This series of reports is produced by the U.S. Bureau of the Census in all non Economic Census years. The reports are available online through the Census Bureau’s American FactFinder system, here. Newspaper circulation data are from “Newspaper Circulation Volume,” Newspaper Association of America, September 4, 2012, available online here.
Original source: First Research and the U.S. Bureau of the Census
Posted on September 12, 2013