With Falling Newsstand Sales, UK Newspapers Push Subscriptions

A volatile advertising market isn't the only reason British newspapers are pushing print and digital subscriptions — it's also to combat a sharp decline in the number of copies being sold at the newsstand.

An article published in The Economist this week shows how British newspapers are slowly becoming "more American" — not in the scope or style of their coverage, but in their business models.

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Historically, British newspapers have sold most of their copies on the newsstand: Even now, 42% of UK citizens get their newspaper from a newsstand or shop, while just 12% have a print or digital subscription, according to a Reuters Institute survey. In the U.S., those numbers are reversed: 30% of news readers have either a print- or digital-newspaper subscription, while 12% get them from a newsstand. (The rest, presumably, get their news for free, entirely online.) Read more...