Digital media
Internet-based media took the largest share of advertising revenue in 2017, 38.4 percent of the total (not counting digital ad revenue for other media). Google and Facebook dominate the digital advertising market, with 60 percent of the ad revenue. Their share is growing, expected by some accounts to rise to 85 percent in 2018.
In terms of news, all major US news organisations now have extensive digital operations, producing content both for online and for their traditional platforms, hiring social media editors to push content into social media and, in the case of many major newspapers, often emphasizing digital subscriptions as a source of growth. Many Internet-native news organisations have also been created, and these take many forms. Some are similar to traditional news organisations, though often with narrower target audiences than the established legacy media. These include organisations like Politico.com, and also many local news operations, which are often non-profit enterprises—for example Voiceofsandiego.org. Some are more activist in character, with strong political agendas, like Breitbart.com, which played a key role in the Trump campaign, and, on the political left, Alternet.org. One effect of digital news circulation is that international media now have significant audiences in the US, including the Guardian, the BBC, and the Daily Mail. In August, 2017, according to one ranking, the top ten news websites by unique monthly visitors were:
- CNN
- The New York Times
- Yahoo News (an aggregator, though with some original content)
- The Washington Post
- Fox News
- BuzzFeed (Internet native)
- USA Today
- Yahoo Finance
- Business Insider
- Forbes