Study: TV remains top news source; online news continues to make gains

From the AP via Fox News:

Fewer Americans are reading newspapers and are instead getting their news online, but television remains the leading source of news in the country, according to a survey released Sunday.

Not surprisingly, younger people tend to get more of their news on the Internet, while older folks use traditional media such as television and newspapers, the Pew Research Center's biannual survey on news consumption habits said. Pew said the results show an increasing shift toward online news consumption, but that there is now a sizable group of a more engaged, sophisticated and well-off people that use both traditional and online sources to get their news.

The Pew researchers referred to these people as "integrators," and says they account for 23 percent of those surveyed, spending the most time with the news on a typical day. "Like Web-oriented news consumers, integrators are affluent and highly educated. However they are older, on average, than those who consider the Internet their main source of news," the survey said. It is this group that advertisers typically like to target, which helps explain why newspaper publishers have seen sharp declines in ad revenues as spending shifts online.

Click here to read the full AP story at FOXnews.com. Click here to read the Pew study. I believe that newspapers and network evening newscasts will continue their steady decline for the next few years unless they show pure balance and a relevancy toward younger readers and viewers.