The publication ink market has been in decline for a while, as digital technologies have impacted newspapers and magazines. While there are some positive signs, the overall outlook remains a concern.

The numbers bear this out. The Pew Research Center reports the trends are downward for newspapers. In 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates that total U.S. daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) was 20.9 million for both weekday and Sunday. Those numbers were down 8% and 10% respectively from 2021.

By contrast, in 1990, weekday newspaper readership in the U.S. was 62,328,000 and Sunday readership was 62,635,000. As recently as 2014, both circulation numbers were higher than 40 million. 

Understandably, as newspaper circulation has gone down, so has advertising and page counts. The Pew Research Center reports that the News Media Alliance (NMA), previously the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), says that ad revenue went from $49 billion in 2005 to slightly below $10 billion in 2022. With that, many newspapers have closed their doors, reduced the number of days they publish, or gone completely digital.

AP reports that the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University finds that as of October 2024, more than 3,200 newspapers have closed since 2005, leaving roughly 5,600 remaining. 

“Newspapers are a critical part of the American news landscape, but they have been hit hard as more and more Americans consume news digitally,” the site reports. “The industry’s financial fortunes and subscriber base have been in decline since the mid-2000s, and their website audience traffic has begun to decline as well.”

The news isn’t much better in magazines: In Touch, Life & Style, Closer and First for Women are the latest magazines that have announced that are closing their doors. AARP: The Magazine has the largest circulation it he US with more than 22 million, but the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) reports that old standards like Reader’s Digest (2.33 million in 2024) and Better Homes and Gardens (3.03 million) are way down from their high-water marks.

“The newspaper market has been marked by a continuous decline as the majority of newspapers move towards digital-only platforms,” Chad B. Steiner, president, North America – Packaging and Graphics, Sun Chemical, says. “In the magazine market, the decline of print is not as steep, but most publications are making notable page-count reductions.”

“The news ink market continues to decline as newspapers move to a digital offering,” Steiner adds. “The overall cost of printing a newspaper has forced the industry to reduce print days and page count and to fully shut down the printing of certain publications. The print model has changed to a more regional approach, with singular locations printing several different daily publications for the geographic area.”

The book market has been the one area where publication printing continues to be solid.

“The one segment of the publication market that has continued to show life is book printing,” says Steiner. “This market is projected to remain steadily successful, with the possibility of a minor increase in printing over the next few years.” 

As a result, web offset printing has suffered.

“Overall, the offset web ink market has continued declining along with newspapers and magazines and other similar publication segments. The print insert market, in particular, has declined dramatically,” Steiner observes.