Newspapers had acquired a major new competitor for the news audience in television, adding to the competition already ongoing from radio and magazines.

The New York media market was by far America's largest at the time (by an even larger margin than it is currently) and had the most daily newspapers.

The newspaper industry was struggling financially by the mid-1960s, and had warned their unions, some of the more militant in the city at the time, that they could not survive yet another strike following devastating walk-outs in 1962–1963 and 1965.

[5] The end of World Journal Tribune represented the end also of all the predecessor newspapers that had previously been absorbed by the three papers that merged, including the Advertiser (the oldest of the predecessors, founded in 1793), the American, the Evening Telegram, the Herald, the Journal, the Press, the Sun, Tribune and the World.

After the newspaper folded, Clay Felker, the editor of New York, bought the rights to the title with partners and brought it out as a glossy magazine.