According to Outsell’s second annual study of nearly 3,000 US news users, one in two use the sites Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL once or more each day for news.
Internet reading is becoming a habit, especially among the young and the Outsell report shows no reversal of earlier trends away from print and broadcast TV.
The big three media – TV, newspapers, and radio – joined by the GYM sites, have effectively turned into the Big four, further disrupting the landscape for publishers, advertisers and audiences.
Outsell says that paid dailies are holding their own, with 50% of respondents consulting a newspaper each day. Online newspapers, though, still struggle to gain anything close to the market share of print. Newspapers and their sites enjoy the highest-income audiences, ranging from business and international news ($75,000) to pro sports and news right now ($100,000).
Free papers are now pulling in a significant audience, with about 60% of consumers reading them once a week.
The first preference of 18 to 39 year olds is for online news delivery. This means that newspapers, TV, and radio, with already flat growth rates, will inevitably see an accelerating decline of their legacy businesses.
Word-of-mouth preference for news and information is high – from 77% among those seeking restaurant information to 30% among those seeking real estate news – reinforcing the priority for publishers to harness and add user-generated content to their offerings. Overall, 33% of news users say word-of-mouth is part of their daily news diet.
The majority of people don’t read ads in Sunday and daily papers, reducing the reading/shopping connection that has long sustained print business models. In addition, online auction sites and free classifieds products have more use than their paid counterparts.
A recent report from eMarketer said that the US remains the single largest internet market in the world with 181.9 million internet users in 2006, although China is likely to take the lead before the decade is out (see US Remains Largest Internet Market In The World).
Meanwhile, in other research eMarketer said that US internet ad spend per user will increase to $88.28 (see US Online AdSpend Per User To Increase).
Related Links
