Our analysis of the number of visits to the top 50 news sites in the US in October found that only three news owners each had more than 10% of total visits, while only eight had a more than 3% share, according to data from Similarweb.
Reflecting the digital market’s diversity, 40% of visits were to sites owned by companies and individuals which each took less than a 3% share of visits.
When it comes to type of ownership across the media more broadly .
Even the big players – some of which have nonetheless managed to turn a failing print business into a thriving digital one – have lost circulation.
New York-based hedge fund Alden Capital meanwhile has made many headlines thanks to its practice of buying up struggling newsrooms and in the view of some “gutting” them to help them turn a profit.
When it comes to state level, that concentration is starker in some states than others.
Merging the Harvard Future of Media list of dailies with data from AMA and University of North Carolina’s News Deserts project to estimate the number of dailies per state, we found that in New Jersey an estimated 90% of titles are controlled by one of the major daily publishers.
Although not all companies separate out print and digital revenue from earnings from other media activities, a ballpark estimate using the data available suggests that the five biggest companies in the newspaper space take up to three quarters of the revenues earned by the group of 26.