New chart reveals the fall of the Newspaper business

Over the past decade, lots of big newspaper companies have gone bust.

But when you take a look at what’s happened to newspaper advertising over that period, it’s a wonder they all haven’t.

Below, via Mark J. Perry and Bill Gross, is a chart we’ve run before. It shows inflation-adjusted newspaper advertising revenue over the past 60 years.

Thanks to the precipitous decline in the last ~7 years, the industry is now back to where we it was in 1950. And it’s only slightly better off when you factor in online revenue.

Journalism professor Jay Rosen of NYU observes that the peak year was the one in which blogging software first appeared.

Newspaper advertising revenue chart