'Do Not Call' Lists Will Hurt U.S. Newspapers' Circulations

The U.S. federal government’s and states’ new ‘Do Not Call’ anti-telemarketing registries might be disastrous for the American newspaper industry, which Editor & Publisher magazines says uses telemarketing to generate 39 percent of all new subscriptions. When you consider that the average newspaper already loses roughly 20 to 50 percent of its subscriptions to churn each year, losing 39 percent of the replacements could be devastating.

The health of print newspapers is important for online newspapers because most online newspapers aren’t profitable and depend upon subsidies from print operations.