Old Market or Young Market — Which Do You Prefer?Back to News

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray looked at the median age in all counties in the U.S. where a daily newspaper is published. We identified the 10 oldest and the 10 youngest of those counties, based on median age. The age of a market’s residents usually has a direct correlation to newspaper household penetration in that market.

As the chart below shows, the 10 youngest counties have a median age of about 20 years younger than the ten oldest counties. The daily newspaper’s household penetration in the youngest counties is on average 9.3 percentage points less than it is in the oldest counties. It is worth pointing out that more than half of the youngest counties have a significant college or university in the county, which lowers the median age and likely also lowers the household penetration. There are no colleges or universities of significant size located in any of the 10 oldest counties.

The map shows all counties in the U.S., divided into quartiles based on median age.