How Does a Newspaper Make Money?

The majority of a newspaper's revenue comes from selling advertising space to local and national advertisers. Retail advertisement space is priced according to its location within the paper and on the page, and by the size of the advertisement itself.

The sale of classified advertisements also makes money for a newspaper, but not on the same scale as with the retail advertisement sales. Each advertisement is sold based upon word count, length of publication and special features such as highlighting and font manipulations (bold or italic type).

Subscriptions are another source of revenue for newspapers. Generally sold on an annual basis, larger newspapers can offer subscribers the choice of delivery of the daily paper, the weekend/Sunday edition or a combination of the two. In addition to subscriptions, newspapers bring in revenue from sales at newsstands and newspaper vending machines.

Inserts are another source of revenue for newspapers. Priced according to size, weight and number of pages, inserts offer advertisers the opportunity to advertise without going through the hassle of delivering it themselves.

While advertisements, subscriptions and inserts bring in revenue, newspapers only make money because they offer something that readers want: worthwhile content. A newspaper pulls together the latest local and national news stories, interesting columns on a variety of subjects, comics, local event listings and other information that will continually keep readers coming back.