As I recall, back in the day (90s) my family subscribed to a regional daily paper, a local weekly paper, National Geographic, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, Smithsonian magazine, various kids magazines depending on age (e.g. Highlights, Boys Life, etc), MIT Technology Review, and a few industry-specific publications.
In addition to that, we'd frequently stop by a newsstand or bookstore to pick up other periodicals if there was an article we were interested in, or if we had extra time to read that week.
The idea of halcyon days when all you needed was a single subscription is a myth. If you wanted regional news plus some pool reports from Washington, Wall Street, and somewhere in Europe, then sure, a single subscription would do. But if you liked to read several different news sources, you paid for several different news sources.