Rapid growth in smartphones and electronic tablets is making the internet a favourite for people seeking news, a report released yesterday has indicated.
US local, network and cable television news, newspapers, radio and magazines all lost audience last year, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research organisation that evaluates and studies the performance of the press.
News consumption online increased 17 per cent last year from the year before, the project said in its eighth annual State of the News Media survey. The percentage of people who say they get news online at least three times a week surpassed newspapers for the first time. It was second only to local TV news as the most popular news platform and seems poised to pass that medium, too, project director Tom Rosenstiel said.
Local TV news has been the most popular format since the 1960s, when its growth was largely responsible for the death of afternoon newspapers, he said. “It was a milestone year,” he added.
People are just becoming accustomed to having the internet available in their pockets on phones or tablets, he said. In December, 41 per cent of Americans said they got most of their news about national and international issues on the internet, more than double the 17 per cent who said that a year earlier, the report noted.
In January, 7 per cent of Americans owned electronic tablets, nearly double what it was three months earlier. Mr Rosenstiel said it was the fastest-growing new digital technology, ahead of mobile phones when they were introduced.
While the project did not have numbers available it said online advert revenue was expected to surpass print newspaper advert revenue for the first time in 2010.
Newspaper circulation continued to decline last year but the rate is slowing, the report said. A survey by the Pew Research Centre for the People the Press found that 40 per cent of Americans read newspapers, in print or online, at least three times a week, down from 52 per cent in 2006.
Jobs have followed the exodus: newsroom staffs are, on average, 30 per cent smaller than in 2000, the report stated.
The project found that 28 per cent of Americans said the loss of their local newspaper would have a major impact on their ability to keep up with local information, 30 per cent said it would have a minor impact and 39 per cent said it would have no impact.
The report was based on a survey of 2,251 American adults, with a margin of error of 2 per cent.