Where Marketing Insight Meets Media Genius
An American Media Timeline
1700 to 2013
Compiled by Gary Winters
Marketing Manager
1704 Boston Newsletter begins publication
1704
The first newspaper
advertisement, an
announcement
seeking a buyer for an
Oyster Bay, Long
Island, estate, is
published in the
Boston News-Letter.
1721
1729
Benjamin Franklin begins
publishing the
Pennsylvania Gazette in
Philadelphia, which
includes pages of "new
advertisements."
Sources: Wikipedia; McSweeney’s, State of Publishing
1775
Isiah Thomas
publishes the
Massachusetts Spy,
which circulation
jumped to 3,500
during prerevolutionary crisis
1787
Literacy in U.S. is 60%
of 3 million Americans. (15)
1830
715 newspapers are published in U.S.
1846
The Associated Press formed and five New York
newspapers funded a pony express route through
Alabama in order to bring news of the Mexican Ware
north more quickly than the USPS could deliver it.
1851
The United States Postal Service offers
newspapers a cheap delivery rate.
1856
The first full-page newspaper ad is
published in the New York Ledger.
1860
New York Herald is nation’s largest
circulation paper with 77,000 daily copies.
1870
5,091 newspapers are published in the U.S.
Sources: Wikipedia
1872
Aaron Montgomery Ward produced
the first mail-order catalogue for his
mail order business.
1873: First illustrated daily
newspaper published in New York.
1877
James Walter Thompson buys Carlton &
Smith from William J. Carlton, paying
$500 for the business and $800 for the
office furniture. He renames it after
himself and moves into general
magazine advertising. Later, he invents
the position of account executive.
1882
Proctor & Gamble begins advertising Ivory soap
with an unprecedented budgetof $11,000.
1900
N.W. Ayer
establishes a
“Business
Getting”
department to
plan advertising
campaigns based
on prospective
advertisers’
marketing needs.
1914
The Audit Bureau of Circulations
is formed, standardizing auditing
procedures.
1920
Associated Advertising Clubs of the World
(1920) reports the proportion of the total
advertising investment of the United
States was placed at $1.284 million, of
which $300,000,000 was estimated as
direct advertising.
1903: The first
tabloid style
newspaper, the
Daily Mirror is
published.
1917
Direct Mail Advertising Association
was established.
1926
Radio Corp. of America buys New
York radio station WEAF from AT&T
and renames it WNBC. It forms the
first radio network with 19 stations
and within a year the National
Broadcasting Co. is launched.
1922
AT&T’s station, WEAF in New York, offers
10 minutes of radio time to anyone who
would pay $100. The Queensboro Corp.,
a Long Island real estate firm, buys the
first commercials in radio ad history.
1926
Radio Corp. of America buys New York
radio station WEAF from AT&T and
renames it WNBC. It forms the first
radio network with 19 stations and
within a year the National
Broadcasting Co. is launched.
1929
Paul Siegel founded Advo offering
private service delivering by hand in
Hartford, CT.
1933: A war breaks out between the
newspaper and radio industries.
American newspapers try to force the
Associated Press to terminate news
service to radio stations.
1938
Radio surpasses magazines as a
source of advertising revenue.
1939
NBC experiments with a
telecast of TV’s first
baseball game, Princeton
vs. Columbia.
1940 1,878 daily newspapers are
published in U.S. steady decline ever since.
1941
With 7,500 TV sets in New York City, NBC’s WNBT begins
telecasting July 1. The first TV spots, featuring a Bulova
watch that ticks for 60 seconds, air as open-and closetime signals for the city’s schedule.
1946
Advo begins mail
delivery in Hartford.
Sources: Wikipedia; Television & Cable Factbook
1948
First Cable TV services begin delivering
broadcast channels to communities in
Oregon, Arkansas and Pennsylvania (6)
1950
There are 96 commercial TV stations in U.S. Nine
percent, or 3,880 U.S. households, have a TV. (5)
1952-53
I Love Lucy captures the
highest ever network rating:
67.3
1954:
There are more radios than there
are daily newspapers.
1954
The term “junk mail” was first used.
1954
CBS becomes the
largest advertising
medium in the
world.
Sources: Wikipedia; Television & Cable Factbook; Nielsen Ratings Co.
1955
Average time
spent watching TV
is 4 hours and 51
minutes.
1960
Almost 90% (87%), or 45,750 U.S. households, have a TV.
1965
Nearly 100% of TV ads on networks were 60 seconds in length. (2)
1967
Lester Wunderman coins the term Direct Marketing.
1972
HBO is among first cable programs to emerge. CSPAN in
1977, Nickelodeon and ESPN launch in 1979 (6)
1976
First basic cable network, launched
via satellite, was Ted Turner’s
superstation WTCG in Atlanta
Sources: Wikipedia; Television & Cable Factbook
1980
Ted Turner creates CNN.
1980
The Columbus Dispatch becomes the first
newspaper to go online. Eleven others were
also a part of CompuServe dial-up service (9)
1982
Gannett Co. launches USA Today.
1983
Time Magazine publishes its
issue naming the computer
as the “Machine of the Year.”
1983
Newspapers begin publishing Total Market
Coverage vehicles to reach non-subscribers.
1984
The Macintosh personal computer
is officially introduced by Apple.
1984
Daily newspaper circulation in U.S. peaks at 63.3 million.
Sources: Wikipedia; USA Today; Time Magazine; Poynter institute (9)
1990
57% of TV households subscribe to
cable; there are 79 cable networks (6)
1991
A DOS version of AOL is issued by Steve Case.
1991
Cheers is the
highest rated TV
show of the
season with a 21.3
rating (14)
1993
Sunday circulation in U.S. peaks at 62.6 million
Sources: Google; Editor & Publisher; Pew Center
1993
The Internet becomes a reality as 5
million users worldwide get online.
1996
Cable residential broadband is introduced (6)
1996
230 North American newspapers have websites on
the Internet or Dial-up, up from 60 in 1995.
1996
Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launch Hotmail (reference to
html). It was the first web-based email system, and make
email available to anybody with Internet access.
1997
Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch Google changing its name from BackRub
1997
The term “weblog” was coined by Jorn
Barger. Shortened to “blog” in 1999.
Sources: Google; Wikipedia; Comm100
1998
AOL announces it has 15 million
subscribers to its dial-up service.
1998
Cable networks triple to 171 networks
1998
4% of U.S. adults get news online at least
weekly.
1999
“Fear.com: Newspapers are on the Web
because they have to be, but they’re
still trying to figure out what to do there.”
Chip Brown, AJR, June 1999.
1999
2,200 radio stations broadcast their signal
on the Internet.
Sources: Pew Center; TV and Cable Factbook
1999
Internet advertising breaks the $2
billion mark and heads toward $3
billion as the industry, under prodding
from Procter & Gamble, moves to
standardize all facets of the industry.
2000
12 billion e-mails are sent per day.
By 2008, it will be 247 billion.
2001
Apple introduces
the I-Pod.
2002
Readership of newspaper classified
ads in 67 metro markets surveyed by
The Media Audit declined more than
11% in three years.
Sources: Google; Apple; Sirius; XM; Forbes; Wikipedia
2001
10 million Google
searches per day.
By 2009, it is
estimated to be
300 million
2001
XM Radio’s first satellite
was launched and
service began. Sirius
Radio began service in
2002.
2002
Klingon becomes one
of 72 language
interfaces on Google.
2003
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 authorizes a
$16,000 penalty for spamming e-mails.
2003
Linked-in and
Skype are
introduced.
2003
The National Do Not Call Registry
was created to offer consumers a
choice whether to receive
telemarketing calls at home.
2004
Mark Zuckerberg
launches Facebook. (7)
2004
The number of wired cable
households in U.S. peaks at 71%. (3)
Sources: Google; Facebook; Wikipedia
2005
Google Earth and
Google Maps are released.
2005
Average time spent watching TV
is 8 hours and 11 minutes.
2007
14% of U.S. homes have a HD Capable TV.
2007
Valassis purchases direct
mailer, ADVO, for $1.2 billion.
Launches Red Plum in 2008.
2005
Slate names “podcast” the word
of the year.
2006
Jack Dorsey, inventor of
Twitter, sends his first tweet:
“just setting up my twttr.”
2007
62% of Americans are part of a wireless, mobile population. (13)
2007
Digital Video Recorders are
available in 17% of U.S. households.
2007
Steve Jobs introduces
the iPhone.
2008
XM and Sirius received
FCC permission to merge.
2008
Google’s index of web
pages reaches 8 billion.
Sources: Google; Nielsen, Sirius/XM
2009
Newspapers start Select Market Coverage
vehicles to reach non-subscribers.
2009
Half (51)% of TV ads on networks were 30 seconds in length.
39% were 15 seconds, 7% were 60 seconds. (4)
2010
Facebook users surpass 100 million.
2010
Steve Jobs introduces the I-Pad.
2011
The number of wired cable
households in U.S. drops to 60%. (3)
Sources: Nielsen, NTI: People Meter sample; Kantar Media; NCTA
2011
Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) reaches 30.7% - a new
high in the U.S. (3)
2011
There are 1,381 commercial TV stations in U.S. (5)
2011
81% of U.S. homes have a personal computer.
2011
ESPN is the highest rated cable channel with a
total weekly cume day audience of 35%. (2)
Sources: Nielsen; DBS
2012
Comcast is nation’s largest cable provider
with 22 million subscribers. (6)
2012
Nearly all U.S. homes (97%), or 114,700
households have a TV.
2012
CBS records the highest weekly cume
(73%) among broadcast stations. (2)
2012
73% of U.S. homes have a HD capable TV.
Sources: Nielsen Television Activity Report; Facebook; Comcast
2012
Facebook users surpass 1 billion.
2012
84% of cable subscribers have a DVR.
2012
Cable networks jump to 800; 93% of
U.S. households have access to cable
broadband (6)
2012
1,427 Daily Newspapers in the U.S.
(up from 1,382 in 2011)
981 Sunday Newspaper in the U.S.
(highest ever, up from 900 in 2011)
Sources: Nielsen; Newspaper Association of America; NCTA
2012
1,100 Cable Operators companies in U.S. (6)
2012
Pandora and Spotify pose serious
competition to satellite radio.
2012
Twitter users top 200 million and
@ladygaga edges out Justin Beiber as the
top Twitter account: 33,265,051 followers
2012
NCIS is the highest rated TV show of
the season with a 12.3 rating.
Sources: Twitter; Nielsen; NCTA
2013
CT1Media – the media
group that publishes the
Hartford Courant records
more than 21.5 million
page views each month.
2013
55% of U.S. adults say they
use mobile media to keep up
with the news, up from 42%
in 2012.
2013
50% of large tablet news
consumers downloaded one
or more news apps from
newspapers.
2013
80% of U.S. adults say they
used one or more mobile
devices in the past 7 days.
Sources: Reynolds Journalism Institute; CT1Media
2013
CT1Media – the media group that
publishes the Hartford Courant records
more than 21.5 million page views
each month.
Sources: CT1Media
Sources: CT1Media
Where Marketing Insight Meets Media Genius
For More Information
Contact:
Gary Winters
Marketing Manager
321-283-5268
gwinters@intersectmediasolutions.com