Americans Spending More Time Following the News (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Pew Research Center ^ | September 12, 2010 | Staff

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There are many more ways to get the news these days, and as a consequence Americans are spending more time with the news than over much of the past decade. Digital platforms are playing a larger role in news consumption, and they seem to be more than making up for modest declines in the audience for traditional platforms. As a result, the average time Americans spend with the news on a given day is as high as it was in the mid-1990s, when audiences for traditional news sources were much larger.

Roughly a third (34%) of the public say they went online for news yesterday – on par with radio, and slightly higher than daily newspapers. And when cell phones, email, social networks and podcasts are added in, 44% of Americans say they got news through one or more internet or mobile digital source yesterday.

At the same time, the proportion of Americans who get news from traditional media platforms – television, radio and print – has been stable or edging downward in the last few years. There has been no overall decline in the percentage saying they watched news on television, and even with the continued erosion of print newspaper and radio audiences, three-quarters of Americans got news yesterday from one or more of these three traditional platforms.

In short, instead of replacing traditional news platforms, Americans are increasingly integrating new technologies into their news consumption habits. More than a third (36%) of Americans say they got news from both digital and traditional sources yesterday, just shy of the number who relied solely on traditional sources (39%). Only 9% of Americans got news through the internet and mobile technology without also using traditional sources.

The net impact of digital platforms supplementing traditional sources is that Americans are spending more time with the news than was the case a decade ago. As was the case in 2000, people now say they spend 57 minutes on average getting the news from TV, radio or newspapers on a given day. But today, they also spend an additional 13 minutes getting news online, increasing the total time spent with the news to 70 minutes. This is one of the highest totals on this measure since the mid-1990s and it does not take into account time spent getting news on cell phones or other digital devices .

The biennial news consumption survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 8-28 on cell phones and landlines among 3,006 adults, finds further evidence that the combination of digital and traditional platforms is leading to increased news consumption.

The groups that are driving the increase in time spent with the news – particularly highly educated people – are most likely to use digital and traditional platforms. Fully 69% of those with some post-graduate experience got news through a digital source yesterday; this also is the group that showed the largest rise in time spent with the news from 2006-2008 to 2010 (from 81 minutes yesterday to 96 minutes). There also has been a modest increase in time spent with the news among those 30 to 64 – but not among older and younger age groups.

Digital platforms are supplementing the news diets of news consumers, but there is little indication they are expanding the proportion of Americans who get news on a given day. The vast majority of Americans (83%) get news in one form or another as part of their daily life. But even when cell phones, podcasts, social networks, email, Twitter and RSS feeds are accounted for, 17% of Americans say they got no news yesterday, little changed from previous years.

Moreover, while young people are most likely to integrate new technologies into their daily lives, they are not using these sources to get news at higher rates than do older Americans. Rather, those in their 30s are the only age group in which a majority (57%) reports getting news on one or more digital platforms yesterday.

The integration of traditional and digital technology is common among those in older age groups as well. Nearly half (49%) of people in their 40s, and 44% of those between 50 and 64, got news through one or more digital modes yesterday – rates that are comparable to those 18 to 29 (48%). Digital news consumption is low only among those ages 65 and older, just 23% of whom used one or more digital modes for news yesterday.

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Newspapers continue to fade. Many charts and graphs at link.

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ping

[MrEdd]

I love the sound of Socialist Propaganda Outlets, unable to minimise the bleak outlook they face in the morning.

Sounds like

Schadenfrude

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/12/AR2010091203330.html
Media Notes: A new poll shows ‘old media’ holding their own in an Internet world

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/business/media/13hollywood.html?adxnnl=1&ref=business&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1284379206-9Ak7E9Y70CX4MdMLtBqzAg
Hollywood Reporter to Become a Weekly Magazine

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20100913_Newspapers__Teamsters_reject_contract_-_again.html
Newspapers’ Teamsters reject contract - again

[GeronL]

more good news

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http://www.homemediamagazine.com/kiosk/report-kiosks-decline-2012-20563
Report: Kiosks to Decline in 2012

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=135563
TV Leads Ad Rebound, Local Papers Decline For 19th Consecutive Quarter

[Zakeet]

At the same time, the proportion of Americans who get news from traditional media platforms – television, radio and print – has been stable or edging downward in the last few years. There has been no overall decline in the percentage saying they watched news on television, and even with the continued erosion of print newspaper and radio audiences, three-quarters of Americans got news yesterday from one or more of these three traditional platforms.

Snort.

Phew is trying to sprinkle perfume on a landfill. No matter how hard they try, it still stinks.

Print is not "stable" unless you hedge my burying it with other news sources. Nor is radio if you take out conservative talk. Nor is TV if you take out Fox.

Unbiased bottom line from data contained in the article: People still want to find out what's going on as much as ever, but they are dumping Libtard propaganda in droves and looking instead online and to conservative sources.

Or more simply stated, the MSM newsers have shot their wad.

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Think of it this way. Before the interweb thingy, all we ever knew was what they WANTED us to know via newspapers and tv news.

[Zakeet]

Andrew Klavan: Obama's Beach Blanket Recovery: It's Happy, Snappy & Incredibly Crappy

Must watch video clip

It takes Klavan about 45 seconds to get rolling, thenhe pokes a sharp stick up the MSM's a$$.

Plenty of both educational and entertainment value.

[ansel12]

That was fun.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-13/tribune-creditors-seek-to-sue-shareholders-and-billionaire-zell.html
Tribune Creditors Seek to Sue Shareholders, Zell

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100913/bs_yblog_upshot/washington-post-to-start-running-front-page-ads;_ylt=AmBMqPzRgYu3z.k8RbOovpLi7r5_;_ylu=X3oDMTN2Z2Qwazk1BGFzc2V0A3libG9nX3Vwc2hvdC8yMDEwMDkxMy93YXNoaW5ndG9uLXBvc3QtdG8tc3RhcnQtcnVubmluZy1mcm9udC
Washington Post to start running front-page ads

[RayChuang88]

When Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave was published in 1980, one very powerful chapter of that book, "De-Massifying the Media," warned specifically that as communication technologies improve, the day of power and unquestioned influence of the mass media would come to an end. We started to see cracks in that influence when by the late 1980's, the rise of CompuServe was the first to become the place to pass news in "real time." But what really kicked it off was the rise of the public Internet circa 1992, when it started to become easier to access the Internet with Windows and MacOS, which opened the door for a low-cost, common access method to spread information around the world in "real time." Windows 95's introduction in 1995 proved to be the gigantic breakthrough, since Windows 95 included the built-in Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) access that made Internet access REAL easy, and that meant millions and millions of comptuer users could finally access the Internet, changing the communications technology dynamic almost overnight.

Today, the public Internet is where just about everyone gets the latest news first. The rise of Twitter and Facebook, which allows for even cellphones to transmit data to the world, has really hyper-accelerated that change. In short, why wait for a day-old newspaper when you can get news right now?

[Zakeet]

MeeMaw cannot be pleased. First the sale of Newsweak for one dollar. Now the contemporary Mad Magazine look.
What's next, perforations for easy tearing into toilet paper, or bird cage liner origami lines, perhaps.