Pew Research Centre

The Pew Research Center has published its 2008 News Media Consumption Survey, which – unsurprisingly – found a continued migration of readers / consumers from print media to online media. It also found a decline in newspaper readership – print and online. 43% of those surveyed in 2006 said they read a newspaper ‘yesterday’ – compared to 38% in the 2008 survey. The number of people that read just a print version of the newspaper fell to 25% from 34%.

Newspaper readership declined overall, 14% of Americans said they read an online newspaper ‘yesterday’ compared to 9% in 2006.

One third of newspaper readers consumed their content via the Web in 2008 compared to a quarter in 2006. Generational segmentation shows that younger readers are more likely to source their news content online, as you might expect, but the decline in print readership is consistent across the board. Baby Boomers are less inclined to read print media down from 42% to 34% in the two years between 2006 and 2008.

Radio as a source of news content has experienced decline in the broadcast media category, while TV news has held its own since 2006, except in the Gen Y demographic. This table shows the most frequented Online news sites – the presence of new media brands in the top half of thise table is interesting. Many print media publications have successfully transferred their business to the Web but remain hamstrung by the inefficient and broken business models associated with their print editions. These challenges are compounded by the sharp decline in advertising revenue, which is accelerating the transformation of the news media.

Pew Research Center 200

I’ve heard it be said that it would be more economical for the publisher of the New York Times to provide every subscriber with an Amazon Kindle than it is for them to produce and distribute a hard copy version of its product. San Francisco could soon become the the first major city in America to not have a daily metro newspaper.

It seems almost certain that daily newspaper will cease to exist in the new future – its a case of when.

The scary aspect to this is the fact that readers will have the power to choose the stories they want to read. We are reliant on the reader to turn to serious online media outlets to ensure that we – as a community – remain informed about what’s going on in the world.  Will individuals organise themselves effectively to hold our institutions, Governments and leaders to account?

Tags: circulation, digital, news, newspapers, online, PEW, readership