The News Industry is Struggling to Stay Relevant

📉 By the numbers… App downloads were down, website traffic was down, and viewership was way down (for cable news at least).

• Primetime news viewership declined 36% across the three major cable networks last year, per Nielsen ratings. MSNBC saw a 25% drop, Fox News saw a 34% drop, and CNN saw a 38% drop.
• Network news channels fared a little better. Viewership at ABC's "World News Tonight" and "CBS Evening News" decreased by 12 percent each, and viewership for NBC's "Nightly News" went down by 14 percent.
• Interactions with news articles on social media (likes, comments, shares) fell 65% between 2020 and 2021, despite more articles published.

☀️ A potential bright spot for society: Folks seem to be gravitating away from hyper-partisan and political publishers. And recent data is showing that Americans want to read about sports – not politics – so you may see publications make some adjustments with their story choices and resources.

📸 The big picture: While the "Trump Bump" is a contested phenomenon, there's no disputing this: some publications took major strides during his presidency. And let's quickly recap 2020: the year of a global pandemic, racial reckoning, and contentious presidential election. So it was a big year for news.

Last year was a non-election year, which historically means that news consumption declines. Plus the rise of podcasts, newsletters, etc., offer consumers other avenues to get similar information, but packaged into a more convenient, conversational, entertaining, and potentially more trustworthy format.

• Substack, a tech platform helping independent writers publish a newsletter and monetize their audience, recently passed 1 million paid subscriptions to publications on its platform. That's a ~4x increase from December 2020.

+Shameless plug: Somehow, we managed to navigate these waters and grow 500% last year. This wouldn't have been possible without your support – so from us to you, thank you for being a subscriber and helping us succeed. We love you all. ❤️