Now, I'm old, as is painfully obvious; but, in my formative years, Archie was a pretty big publisher, right up there with DC and Marvel. In the 70s, the main players were DC, Marvel, Archie, Harvey, Gold Key, Charlton and Warren. Archie, Harvey and Gold Key pretty much had the childrens' market sewn up, with Archie and the gang controlling a certain part, Richie Rich and Casper handling another segment, and Gold Key getting the Disney and Looney Tunes Crowd. Warren was its own world on magazine stands. Charlton tended to get the scraps, as their spotty distribution hurt them, in the long run. Archie had always been one of the biggest companies, from its beginnings as MLJ, right up to the 70s. They always seemed to be number 3, in my childhood. It kind of felt like the decline of newsstands that began in the 70s hurt them, and their near total absence from comic shops critically wounded them. You'd see the digests in grocery stores; but, rarely the comics. They got some resurgence with the TMNT licensed comics and Sonic; but, nothing close to what they once had. Still, they are still in there fighting when everyone else but DC and Marvel gave up the ghost (and DC and Marvel have been on the brink, at times).
Funny, I've seen and heard more about Archie books now than I did for most of the period between 1980 and 2010.