Newspapers have retained their importance as vehicles for advertising—including display ads as well as classified advertisements. Even after classified advertising became available on the Internet, local papers retained a significant share of classified ads, especially in the categories of job recruitment and real estate. In smaller and rural communities, regional and local papers have remained essential for small businesses wishing to advertise.

Although newspapers had traditionally counted on the income from subscriptions and newsstand purchases, it became increasingly evident that advertising was a newspaper’s primary source of profit. One of the main developments of the 1970s and ’80s was the spread of free newspapers (known in the United Kingdom as free sheets), which are delivered door-to-door or distributed in public places. Many free newspapers are printed by smaller newspaper enterprises and are entirely financed by advertising revenue. In the early 21st century, large metropolitan newspaper publishers began experimenting with free tabloid versions of their daily papers; their goal was to build brand recognition among younger readers who were less likely to purchase or subscribe to traditional newspapers. However, by promoting a sense that one need not pay for news, the free papers and free news Web sites joined radio and television in posing a threat to the existence of paid-subscription newspapers. Although The Wall Street Journal began charging for its online content in 1996, most newspaper publishers thought that free access to the online versions of their papers would yield strong advertising income and help build the subscription base for their print-edition papers. Even 10 years later, as publishers increasingly saw the need to charge for online access, The Wall Street Journal remained the only American newspaper not offering free viewing of some—if not most—of its daily news.

Contemporary challenges

Besides working to retain their share of advertising, newspapers must compete for the attention of the consumer who can get the main points of the news from a variety of sources. Over the decades newspapers have done well to survive amid the proliferation of portable radios, radios in automobiles, cable and satellite-broadcast television channels, Internet news sites, and web logs. Readers may be attracted by the paper’s sports reporting, racing tips, editorials, cartoons, job advertisements, gossip columns, or, ironically, the daily listings of radio and television programming. The modern reader, in fact, is more likely to buy a newspaper to consult a special section than to read it from cover to cover.

Other mass media have nonetheless influenced the style and the substance of newspapers, especially as audiences seek entertainment in tandem with more straightforward news. One social change that newspapers have capitalized upon regards the increase in leisure time in developed countries. To accompany the growth of a diversity of leisure activities such as home improvement, gardening, and food and wine, newspapers have devoted special features to these activities, particularly in their weekend editions. Foreign travel has also become more common, creating a demand for informative articles on popular tourist destinations. Even the sports pages, an essential part of the modern newspaper, have been affected by the changing leisure patterns—there has been an increase in the number of sports of general interest, allowing the expansion of the sports section to cover less popular sports. The economic advantage of covering more leisure activities and interests comes from the ability of newspapers to attract advertising revenue from commercial suppliers of leisure goods and services. In expanding their coverage to include modern leisure interests, newspapers can be seen to reflect the society of which they are a part.