Newspapers make money through adds, subscribers and now even online. thePaperboy.com boasts a "List of 6049 Online Newspapers..." The New York Times has online subscriptions available for tablets, laptops and smartphones to name a few. Newspapers are fairly cheap to subscribe to online, The New York Times is only 99 cents for the first four weeks. The Wall Street Journal costs around $2.00 per week for the online copy compared to the local paper in my home town, Palm City. They does not charge for the online copy but have lots of advertisements on their website.
Advertisements from businesses, companies and personal adds supply most of the money to the newspapers. Advertising is one of the reasons that already prosperous newspapers prosper more and new papers have a harder time. Another factor is location. There are two fairly well known newspapers in New York alone, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Why is this? While not geographically large, many people pick up the paper on their way to work, and the plethora of cultures makes it a prime location for journalism and news. Different ideas and opinions all mixed together in a busy working community leads to more newspapers because of consumer demand. On the flip side in small towns where a local paper has already been established it is much harder for a new paper to come in and make money. Companies want to advertise with the biggest newspaper to get more publicity.
The most obvious ways that newspapers make money is through their hard copy sells. These could be people that subscribe weekly, businesses that then sell them in their shops or quarter vendor machines. It is still all about publicity, the most popular newspaper gets the most money. It is more about name recognition for less experienced readers and it then turns into preference for journalists, photographers and sometimes the comics. How picky you can be depends on location, some towns have only one paper. The whole process is amazing, how a newspaper can survive on seemingly so little money and so many expenses but somehow it works. The people will have what the people want.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TCPalm (respectively)
