That last line is one I was aiming at, but I do not have any way to quantify it.
I used to want to try and make the news valuable to myself. I have yet to find a way to do that, though. Such that I am unlikely to want to pay for it anytime soon. Would be neat to consider ways I could start making the news of more personal value.
You could probably get a fair way to quantifying that by looking at premium news-publication subscription rates, and making allowances for domestic vs. international readership.
There's also the 15% subscribership rate amongst NPR listeners, which suggests to me a hard-core media consumer segment. That percentage has been steady for decades, and if anything has fallen somewhat as NPR's overall listenership has expanded.
The hard-core news segment is probably on the order of 1--5% of the population.
Circulation of WSJ and NYT, print and online, is roughly 3m and 7m respectively. That's from a total US adult population of ~300m, or about 1--2% of population for each. I suspect a fair bit of overlap in subscriptions.
How much of this is a matter of interest, willingness to pay, ability to pay, or ability to access news through other means/channels, I don't know.
I used to want to try and make the news valuable to myself. I have yet to find a way to do that, though. Such that I am unlikely to want to pay for it anytime soon. Would be neat to consider ways I could start making the news of more personal value.