2004 Annual Report - Online Audience

If Web usage does continue to grow, including going online to get the news, it raises a fundamental question: Will the Web kill old media? One longstanding worry among traditional news producers, particularly newspapers, is the fear that as more people turn to online news, it will sharply accelerate the pace at which their audience in the old media will shrink. Research in this area, though, suggests that the threat of technology may not be so cut and dry.

In 2002, nearly three-quarters of users (72 percent) said that they spent the same amount of time reading print newspapers today as they did before they began reading news online, according to Jupiter Research. Less than a quarter (22 percent) reported spending less time than before and a few, 3 percent, even said they spent more.¹¹

A similar pattern holds true for print magazines.¹²

The Web may be having a greater negative impact on television news, but it still may not be as much as some people think. In the Jupiter study, 36 percent of Internet users indicated that their television viewing time has decreased since going online, 14 percentage points more than for newspaper. About 61 percent said it was the same and 2 percent said it increased.¹³

A 2000 survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press also found that those who regularly went online reported watching less network television news than two years earlier.¹⁴ Fewer watched television news overall, and those who did watched less of it. Meanwhile, viewing among those who did not go online was unchanged.

Amount of Time Online News Users Spent Reading Newspapers, 2002

Weekly minutes, 2002

Design Your Own Chart

Source: UCLA Center for Communication Policy, ‘’The UCLA Internet Report – Surveying the Digital Future,’’ January 2003; PEJ Research

Light use is under 60 minutes a week, medium is 60 to 119 minutes, heavy is 120 minutes or more.

At the same time, however, the Web may be attracting young people to news who have not gravitated to more traditional media. While television and newspapers have been struggling to find ways to attract younger viewers and readers, more than 55 percent of Internet users aged 18 to 34 were getting news online in a typical week in 2002.¹⁵

Percent Of Internet Users Accessing News in a Typical Week By age group, 2002

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Source: UCLA Center for Communication Policy, ‘’The UCLA Internet Report – Surveying the Digital Future,’’ January 2003; PEJ Research

Minutes Spent Reading Online News Weekly By age group, 2002

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Source: UCLA Center for Communication Policy, ‘’The UCLA Internet Report – Surveying the Digital Future,’’ January 2003; PEJ Research

Amount of Time Online News Users Spent Reading Magazines

Weekly minutes, 2002

Design Your Own Chart

Source: UCLA Center for Communication Policy, ‘’The UCLA Internet Report – Surveying the Digital Future,’’ January 2003; PEJ Research

Light use is under 60 minutes a week, medium is 60 to 119 minutes, heavy is 120 minutes or more.

The data from UCLA add another dimension to understanding the question of cannibalization. They suggest that the Web does not change the basic nature of a person's news consumption. People generally can be put into one of three categories - heavy, medium or light news consumers.¹⁶ According to the UCLA data, heavy consumers of online news are also heavy consumers of newspapers. They read newspapers for an average of 225 minutes a week, a full 10 percent more than the average of online and non-online users combined (which is 201 minutes per week).

Similarly, medium consumers of online news report midlevel usage of newspapers (159 minutes per week). And light consumers of online news are light consumers of newspapers (144 minutes per week, 28 percent less than the overall average). The Web didn't change their behavior.

Thus the question of whether the Internet is cannibalizing or supplementing other media is complicated. The heaviest users online are also heavy users of old media. And while some substitution is going on, getting people interested in news online could also get them interested in news elsewhere.

All this has implications. It suggests, we would theorize, that news executives perhaps should be less worried about one medium cannibalizing another and more worried about making the news more engaging, relevant and interesting generally, and making their advertising and sponsorship strategies more valuable to the people paying for their products.

At least for now, people spend less time getting news online than they do getting it from other mediums. People report spending roughly two hours a week acquiring news online, a full hour less than they spent reading newspapers, and nearly half an hour less than they did reading magazines. Online news consumption appears to be a way of getting certain kinds of news - perhaps updates, news pertaining to work, looking at something a co-worker has mentioned - but it may be a different kind of consumption than for newspapers and magazines. If that inference is correct, it may be another sign that the mediums may complement each other.