This study of 381 U.S. counties outside of central counties in metropolitan areas indicates that competition among newspapers in three layers of the umbrella model exists throughout the United States. However, the intensity of competition between some layers can vary greatly from county to county. The strongest and most consistent impact was between newspapers in the weekly and nonmetro daily layers. The strength of impact varied depending on whether the weeklies were paid or free.

Contrary to the general impression of the daily newspaper industry as a dying industry, data from 1987 to 2003 showed an industry in transition. Although 305 newspapers ceased daily publication during this period, 64% of these newspapers continued to serve their markets as weeklies, merged dailies, or zoned editions. The 111 dailies that went out of business were offset by sixty-three dailies that started publication. In effect, the newspaper industry lost service in forty-eight markets during seventeen years.

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This national study of 432 weekly newspapers found that competition from other weeklies in a county was correlated with a lower cost-per-thousand ad rate. However, when a subsample of 236 weeklies with intense competition was analyzed, this relationship with cost per thousand disappeared. Instead, the data showed that as competition became more intense, a weekly's open-column-inch ad rates decreased. Also, when market size was controlled for, ad rates for paid weeklies did not differ from free weeklies' ad rates.

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