Audience & Distribution

By Ha Ta

Audience Analytics

Web Traffic as Measured by Average Monthly Uniques

Web traffic patterns among INN members in 2025 varied by revenue size and coverage area. Unique monthly visitors for the typical INN member (the median) increased to 36,800 in 2025 from 30,000 in 2024. However, not all members are experiencing that growth the same way. Average unique monthly visitors fell by 6%, to 175,000 from 186,000, with loss concentrated among a few outlets with revenues between $2M and $5M, while smaller and larger outlets saw gains.

Web traffic patterns among nonprofit news outlets are consistent with those of the broader media landscape. Press Gazette, a U.K.-based trade journal for journalists and editors, reported that as of March, only 24% of the top U.S. news websites (12 out of 50) saw year-over-year traffic growth from March 2025. In that timeframe, 29 of the 50 top U.S. news websites saw double-digit traffic declines. These findings come from traffic data generated by Similarweb, a web analytics platform that tracks and estimates online traffic across websites and apps.

Web traffic trends are already being influenced by search engine and AI integration and continued declining referrals from social media. According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Digital News Report for 2025, publishers anticipate a drop of almost half (-43%) over the next three years based on these two factors. Several studies indicate click-through rates to news sites have already declined as search results are replaced by AI summaries in Google. 

To better understand the divergence between fieldwide medians (up) and averages (down) in web traffic trends, we looked at averages of subgroups from a cohort of 345 nonprofit news organizations that provided web visitor data for 2024 and 2025.

The divergence seems to be driven by web traffic losses among outlets with revenues between $2M and $5M, potentially squeezed between the loyalty that sustains smaller outlets and the brand recognition and SEO dominance that drives traffic to the largest ones. This group, which makes up 13% of INN membership, averaged a loss of over 41,000 unique monthly visitors. Smaller outlets (with revenue under $2M and making up 78% of membership) gained an average of 9,500 visitors. The largest outlets in membership (over $5M in revenue) saw greater gains, averaging 40,800 new visitors. 

A similar pattern appears when looking at outlets by their geographic scope of coverage, national/global outlets averaged a loss of about 37,300 unique monthly visitors. Local and state/regional outlets fared considerably better, posting average gains of roughly 14,600 and 25,500, respectively. 

Looking at how outlets are faring individually, web traffic growth is the more common experience. Three quarters of outlets either held steady or grew their audiences in 2025, while only about a quarter saw declines. This is consistent with the picture above: The decline in the average reflects struggles concentrated in a small segment of membership rather than a broad retreat across the field.Specifically, nearly 6 in 10 (57%) of the 345 nonprofit news organizations that provided web visitor data for 2024 and 2025 saw web traffic increase while about 1 in 5 (18%) remained flat. Nearly a quarter (24%) saw web traffic decline¹.

Newsletter Subscribers

In 2025, nonprofit news organizations’ median number of newsletter subscribers rose to 6,500 from 6,000 the previous year. Looking at averages, newsletter subscribers fell from 24,200 in 2024 to 23,000 in 2025. The average decline is roughly in line with 2023 levels. 

To better understand the divergence between fieldwide median (up) and averages (down), we looked at subgroup data from a cohort of 338 nonprofit news organizations that provided newsletter subscribers data for 2024 and 2025.

Larger outlets make up only 8% of INN membership, but their newsletter subscriber losses seem to drive the divergence. Larger nonprofit news organizations, with more than $5M in revenue, lost an average of about 2,800 newsletter subscribers per outlet. 

Medium-sized outlets, with $2M to $5M in revenue, gained an average of 1,500 subscribers. Those outlets account for 14% of membership. 

Smaller outlets, with less than $2M in revenue, gained an average of about 730 subscribers. 

Looking across geographic scope of coverage, national/global is the only subgroup that saw a decline in newsletter audience while both local and state/regional outlets saw growth. National/global outlets make up half of all outlets with over $5M in revenue. 

On average, national/global outlets saw a loss of about 900 subscribers per outlet. Meanwhile, local outlets saw an average gain of 950 subscribers and state/regional outlets gained about 1,000 subscribers per outlet.

This suggests that small and mid-sized outlets are growing their subscriber lists while larger national outlets face greater challenges in maintaining theirs.

Newsletter subscribers proved more resilient than web traffic. More than half (51%) of the 338 that provided newsletter data for 2024 and 2025 increased the number of email newsletter subscribers while 16% experienced a drop. Outlets were also more likely to sustain their newsletter list size. About one-third held steady with newsletter lists compared to one-fifth for web traffic. 

Distribution Trends

How nonprofit news outlets distribute their content has changed substantially over the past decade. In 2017, only 1 in 3 outlets (33%) relied primarily on their own channels, while third-party platforms and mixed approaches each accounted for roughly a third of the field. Today, nearly 3 in 4 outlets (74%) distribute primarily through their own channels — a figure that has remained stable over the past three years.

This stability follows a substantial and steady rise in third-party distribution since 2017. The most rapid period of change occurred between 2018 and 2020, when direct distribution rose to 72% from 48%, likely reflecting a broader industry reckoning with the risks of platform dependency.

Between 2017 and 2025, the share of outlets using a mixed approach declined from 34% to 12%, indicating fewer outlets are splitting their distribution strategy across channels, or outlets that once straddled both strategies have largely committed to direct distribution as their primary model.

Local outlets and those covering general news continue to prioritize direct publishing. Single-topic and investigative outlets, and those covering nonlocal markets, take advantage of third-party distribution by enabling and encouraging other outlets to republish their stories to reach a wider audience.

We observe that an outlet’s coverage priority and geographic scope often influence the extent to which they rely on direct or third-party distribution.

• General-topic outlets and those covering news and events tend to rely more heavily on direct channels — such as their own websites, email newsletters and podcasts — to distribute their work. Single-topic and investigative outlets, by contrast, are more likely to distribute via third-party partners. This partly reflects the nature of the journalism they produce: Longer-form, specialized journalism is less conducive to the publishing frequency needed to drive consistent direct traffic, making republication a practical strategy for reaching wider audiences. The data reflects this pattern: 85% of general-topic outlets distribute primarily through their own channels, compared to 54% of single-topic outlets. Similarly, 87% of outlets covering news and events rely primarily on direct distribution, compared to 51% of investigative outlets.
  
• Local outlets continue to prioritize direct publishing. In 2025, most local outlets (89%) focused on reaching audiences through their own direct platforms, mostly online. Meanwhile, state/regional and national/global outlets are less likely to do so (58% and 56%, respectively) and are more likely than local outlets to distribute their content via redistribution partners.

Third Party Republication

Investigative and single-topic outlets have a higher number of republication partnerships compared to general news publications

The median number of republication partners among INN members in 2025 is eight. By coverage priority, investigative outlets reported a higher median of 19 partners compared to five among outlets covering daily news. By editorial focus, single-topic outlets reported a median of 21 partners compared to 5 among outlets covering a broad range of topics.

Larger outlets publishing at the national level account for the majority of third-party distribution partnerships 

In 2025, the typical INN member had a median of eight republication partners, though the average was much higher at 118, reflecting a small number of members with very large partner networks. 

Larger outlets with over $2 million in revenue reported having the majority of republication partners among INN members. They account for 63% of all reported republication partners despite making up only a fifth of INN membership. Nearly half (46%) of them have a national or global coverage scope.

As reported in our 2024 audience deep-dive research, larger, more prominent national outlets have greater visibility and capacity to build distribution networks. For local newsrooms, third-party republication simply offers fewer strategic advantages as their value to readers is rooted in geographic relevance, making wider syndication less of a priority. 

Redistributing stories through third-party partners is a key way larger state, national and global nonprofit outlets expand their reach. Their specialized, often investigative content travels well across geographies, and these outlets could be motivated to grow their audiences through partners, which can raise their profile or demonstrate impact to funders. Local outlets, by contrast, face structural limitations: Place-specific content holds less appeal for publishers with a broader scope, and the few other publications operating in their market may be direct competitors for audience and advertising revenue. 

National outlets account for 73% of members’ republication partners despite making up only 16% of the network. In contrast, local outlets comprise more than half of the membership and account for just 7% of republication partners. 

About a dozen national powerhouses reported 1,000 or more partners.

The Hechinger Report, a single-topic outlet covering education news, is one of those handful of INN members with over 1,000 redistribution partners. That reach was by design, Director of Audience Nichole Dobo said. 

“When The Hechinger Report was founded, we always planned to syndicate our work with partner publications,” Dobo said. “Our editors find at least one partner for every major story we produce.”  

Over time, a dedicated audience team has layered on broader syndication efforts and used automated tools to reduce the friction of sharing work widely. 

“We have a variety of methods,” Dobo said, “but one that has been particularly useful because it is seamless is with RSS feeds to serve our stories directly to partners.” 

Hechinger Report stories include a republication button partners can use to get content, Dobo said. 

The Hechinger Report has also allowed some partners to further distribute stories through their own networks after publication, multiplying reach beyond what direct partnerships alone could achieve.

Tracking where stories land is an involved process made easier by requiring standard language and a link back to the original story, allowing the team to search for republications that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The Hechinger Report website draws deeply engaged readers who seek out education coverage but, Dobo said, syndication lets them reach a different, larger group: the millions of casual readers who care about education but encounter news through general-interest publications. 

Rather than seeing republication and direct audience growth as competing priorities, The Hechinger Report treats them as complementary. Syndicated stories include links to their newsletter, turning a one-time reader on a partner site into a potential direct subscriber. In 2025, that approach translated into more than 1,000 third-party outlets republishing their work — a scale that remains rare across INN membership.

The Daily Yonder, a national outlet covering rural communities, is another INN member with more than 1,000 republication partners in 2025. Republication has been an intentional core strategy for the newsroom since its founding, according to Madeline de Figueiredo, the Yonder’s rural reporter and engagement coordinator. The reason, she explained, lies in the nature of the outlet’s coverage: While their stories are rooted in specific local communities, the issues they cover tend to resonate across rural America. A story about data centers or healthcare in rural Texas often mirrors what is happening in rural Maine or North Carolina, de Figueiredo said.

That dual local-national character shapes how the Yonder approaches republication. When a reporter files a story tied to a specific place, the newsroom does direct outreach to local partners in that region while simultaneously circulating the piece to its broader national network. The work is split between a dedicated communications and outreach manager and a set of distribution platforms — including Stacker, Apple News, MSN and Public News Service — that operate on a more automated cadence. Formal reporting partnerships with other newsrooms, such as recent collaborations with Canary Media and Reveal, have further expanded their reach by tapping into existing partner audiences.

To track where stories land, they rely on spreadsheets, platform analytics and a pixel embedded in a republication button on their site that follows articles across the web. The Yonder uses these numbers for grant applications and internal strategy, though de Figueiredo added that some of the most meaningful impact has been less quantifiable: Readers who encounter the Yonder’s work through a republication partner write in with coverage feedback, tips and story ideas. That feedback allows the newsroom to draw connections and raise issues it would not have found on its own. 

At both newsrooms, building a syndication network was a core strategy from the start — one they embedded directly into their distribution workflow. Reaching local audiences from a national perch is challenging, and partnering with outlets that already have those community ties has proven an effective way to close that gap. Syndicating widely comes with trade-offs: The wider the syndication network, the harder it becomes to know who you are engaging with and how many. But for these newsrooms, that reach has been worth it.

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1. In this report, we define an increase as growth of 10% or more, a decline as a decrease of 10% or more, and flat as less than 10% change in either direction. ↩︎