Newspapers and Broadcasting Are Still Primary News Sources And Internet News, While Growing in Popularity, Still Just Supplements Most Needs

That the Internet is popular, especially with the under 35s, is indisputable. But for all that popularity, the traditional media is still doing OK (not as good as before the Internet, but OK) and recent statistics indicate its loss of readers is slowing down.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has just completed its latest biennial news consumption survey and the results show that Internet usage for news is increasing – especially with the older generations – and newspaper readers are down from 10 years ago (and that includes those who say they read just the newspaper, read the newspaper and its online site, and those who just read the newspaper online site).

But even with that the survey points out, “The web serves as a supplement to other sources rather than the primary source of news. Those who use the web for news still spend more time getting news from other sources than they do getting news online.”

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What is really interesting is that the American public in 1996 – before the first Internet boom -- spent some 66 minutes a day getting their news from newspapers and broadcasters. Ten years later they are spending practically the same time on getting news (67 minutes) but that now includes Internet news. So it’s not that the thirst for news is any less than 10 years ago, but rather that users have expanded their news universe to include the Internet.

And why do users go to the Internet? According to the survey, based on telephone interviews with 3,200 Americans, it’s not that the Internet has news not available in traditional media (except for fast breaking news stories on which print cannot compete but broadcasters can) but rather users learn quickly where to find the news they want online and therefore they don’t spend that much time actually looking for what they want.

“Most users say what distinguishes web news is its format and accessibility, the ease of navigation, speed with which information can be gathered, and convenience ‘at my fingertips’,” the report said.

So if the Internet is so convenient then why bother with traditional media at all? According to the report, traditional media users put first the subject matter and journalistic and editorial qualities of the content ahead of convenience, and that should bring joy and hope to any editor!

But traditional media cannot forget that just 10 years ago only 2% of Americans got any news at all from the Internet. Today, one-in-three get news regularly online.

But the report makes clear that in the past six years the growth of online news “has slowed considerably, particularly among the very young who are somewhat less likely to go online for news than are people in the 40s.”

The report credits newspapers with slowing down their readership decline via their online editions. When respondents were asked if they had read a newspaper yesterday 34% said yes to just reading the print edition, 4% read print and web, and just 2% said they read the web edition alone. Another 3% said they had read a local newspaper site that was not in their own city, or a national newspaper site, so newspaper readership today under best circumstances is some 43%. Ten years ago for the print edition alone it was 50%.

“The long-standing generation gap in newspaper reading has narrowed over the past decade, in part because of online newspapers, but this is a decidedly mixed blessing for newspapers,” according to the report.

“It reflects that while newspapers continue to draw anemic numbers of young readers (just 29% of those readers under age 30) that figure has remained stable since 1996, as some young readers have turned to online papers. However, newspaper readership among older age groups has fallen significantly over that period. Even when online newspapers are included, 58% of those aged 65 and older said they read a newspaper yesterday, down from 70% a decade ago,” the report said.

And there’s the real problem. Newspapers had figured the young had gone, and they were doing whatever they could do to get the young back, many times with added new features aimed at those age groups, and sometimes with big relaunches.

But the figuring went that the older generation, not exactly the advertiser’s ideal demographic, was staying put and had little interest in getting news from a new digital medium, and the only real worry was that the old were dying faster than they could be replaced by the young subscriber.

But with the statistics showing that newspaper readership by the over 65s is also in deep decline then their allegiance can no longer be taken for granted. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune underwent a reformat last year particularly aimed a recapturing the young reader, and the older readers complained. Editors said they were not aware of any cancellations, but the older reader can no longer be taken for granted. If the paper is turned too much towards the young, then that stable, older generation could just up and move away, too.

One other point that traditional media needs to ponder comes from an earlier Pew project this year, “State of the News Media Study, 2006). That report concluded that when it comes to actual news stories on the Internet” virtually all original newsgathering …was still being done by the old media.” There was no new journalism on the Internet, and traditional media were losing circulation or listeners/viewers because traditional media was putting its news out there on the Internet for free. Yahoo doesn’t have its own staff of reporters. Nor does Google.

The news agencies were clever from the beginning, recognizing a new revenue stream, and sold (not gave) their news to Internet entrepreneurs. Reuters, which recognized very early the Internet revenue potentials, even charged its existing traditional media customers an added premium to use its material online. But the media were putting news on their own web sites for free.

Go back 10 years. What if traditional media told the news agencies that if they sold their news online then the news traditional media was buying from the agencies was worth that much less, since it would be “out there” before they could be “out there” and they therefore wanted their news agency costs reduced accordingly. (Does anyone still remember the awful broadcast birthing pains that AP went through because its newspaper owners objected to the agency selling news to broadcasters even though UPI had opened that business line? It is only fairly recently that it is getting over similar pains in making real money from the online world).

What if newspapers and broadcasters had not put their news on the Internet for free? What if the only way to get news on the Internet was to pay for it? Would newspaper circulation have suffered as it has, would advertisers be fleeing as they are? Is it too late to change the model?

It’s all water under the bridge now, but that sharp pain traditional media now feels in both feet can be traced back to those bullets it fired 10 years ago.