Youth and Broadband Users Read Web News
Posted on March 22, 2006
USA Today reports on a new PEW study confirms the widely accepted knowledge that young people generally use the Internet for news and are spending less and less time with TV news and print newspapers. The study also found that 71% of broadband users use the web for news.
The report is based on a survey in December 2005 of 3,011 adult Americans, 1,931 of whom are Internet users and 1,014 of whom have high-speed connections at home.People still want news and information but they want it online. Publishers need to focus on the websites because this is where the future growth in the news business is going to be.Within a "high-powered" group of Internet users � those who use broadband four or more times a day � 71% go online for news on an average day, while 59% get news from local TV, just over half from national TV and radio, and about 40% from local newspapers.
But especially for the under-36 age group, the local newspaper, local television and national TV newscasts play lesser roles in their newsgathering, the study finds.
The study paints a bleak outlook for traditional ink-on-paper newspapers. But it also finds that younger readers - those under 36 who are often written off as not interested in news - are being drawn into the news habit earlier thanks to the appeal of the Internet.