Are you a news junkie or disinterested? A report from Pew Research Center now defines 4 catagories of news consumers and the following paragraph and chart are really not suprising....
"Since the1990s, the proportion of Americans saying they read a newspaper on a typical day has declined by about 40%; the proportion that regularly watches nightly network news has fallen by half. Most of the loss in readership since 2006 has come among those who read the print newspaper. These trends have been more stable in recent years, but the percentage saying they read a newspaper yesterday has fallen from 40% to 34% in the last two years alone."
|
News Source Participation (% of survey participants) |
|
|
1993 |
1996 |
1998 |
2000 |
2002 |
2004 |
2006 |
2008 |
|
Listened/Read yesterday |
|
Newspaper |
58% |
59 |
48 |
47 |
41 |
42 |
40 |
34 |
|
Radio news |
47 |
44 |
49 |
43 |
41 |
40 |
36 |
35 |
|
Regularly watch |
|
Cable TV news |
- |
- |
- |
- |
33 |
38 |
34 |
39 |
|
Local TV news |
77 |
65 |
64 |
56 |
57 |
59 |
54 |
52 |
|
Nightly network news |
60 |
42 |
38 |
30 |
32 |
34 |
28 |
29 |
|
Network morning news |
- |
- |
23 |
20 |
22 |
22 |
23 |
22 |
|
Online |
|
Three of more days a week |
- |
2 |
13 |
23 |
25 |
29 |
31 |
37 |
|
Source: PEW Research Center, August 2008 |
Does your station deliver the news? I'm not talking about rip and read but impacting your audience and effecting thier lives. If print has lost readership are we picking up the advertisers? Have you developed your web site and your news, sportscasts, or jock liners about community events into something that you have to visit or listen to daily to know what is going on locally?
To check out the research brief click here