Our best offer:

Lock in a year of Digiday+ for 35% less. Ends May 29.

SUBSCRIBE

5 charts that describe the state of digital publishing

Digital publishers grew significantly in 2013, adding new writers, raising capital and expanding into new countries. But what the digital natives like BuzzFeed and Mashable haven’t quite worked out yet is how to convert all that growth into sustainable long-term businesses: Digital publishers may have added roughly 5,000 full-time editorial jobs last year, but those additions hardly make up for the 45,000 total jobs lost by the newspaper and magazine industries.

“There’s no Eureka moment yet for the industry. No one out there thinks we’ve turned a corner,” said Mark Jurkowitz, associate director at Pew Research Center.

In its 2013 State of the News Media report released today, Pew found that while digital publishing is clearly booming, it’s not exactly offsetting brick-and-mortar losses elsewhere in the industry. Here are a few highlights in handy chart form. You can also get a somewhat more in-depth look at the report’s highs and lows here.

First, some context: Here’s how the overall U.S. news industry stacks up against other companies and sectors. 

Annual-Revenue-Revenue-in-billions_chartbuilder (1)

Advertising remains central to the business model, though publishers are experimenting with other revenue streams like events and subscriptions.

pew-journalism-revenue

 

Overall ad spending on digital-only publishers, while growing, is still a relatively tiny part of the $44 billion news media ad spending.

Ad-revenue-by-sector-in-millions-Revenue_chartbuilder

Also, search and banner ads still dominate. Sorry, native. 

ad-spending

These are the top six digital publishers mentioned in the report in terms of 2013 revenue. 

Estimated-Revenue-2013-Revenue_chartbuilder

2013 was another growth year for video ads, though they’re still small percentage-wise.

Digital-video-ad-revenue-Revenue_chartbuilder

 

 

More in Media

Twitch tweaks monetization tools to try and help smaller creators build a following

Twitch’s new community-driven monetization tools seek to give creators more ways to get paid, but creators need to get discovered first

Media Briefing: Publishers brace themselves for the zero-click era amid Google’s AI search overhaul

Publishers are meeting Google’s AI search overhaul with resignation rather than resistance, bracing for a zero-click future on the horizon.

U.S. CPG manufacturers are sitting on excess capacity, which could be a boon for brands

Keychain’s, CPG Intelligence Report showed that one major theme companies are grappling with is significant overcapacity.