Boomers still love print
According to a new study from the Newspaper Audience Databank, daily newspapers in Canada reach 56% of adults 40 plus on the average weekday and 78% each week. "Their readership habits have changed little over the past 20 years despite intense media fragmentation and technological innovation resulting in a 'media everywhere' marketplace," the study found.
Some of the more notable numbers of the Canadian study are:
- Adults 40+ represent 60% of the adult population in the 16 Canadian markets measured
- boomers read 5.4 issues per week, on average, compared to 4.8 issues for the younger generation
- the 40+ group spends 105 minutes with a paper on the weekend, while those under 40 spend 67 minutes, on average
- 50% of both over- and under-40 read online newspapers during the week
Source: Editor & Publisher
3 Comments
Leave a comment
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Boomers still love print.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.editorsweblog.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/5129
The larger problem will come with false identities and scams filtering through to the main stream. Online "calling cards" will become a must have. A new wave of honesty is hitting the net and we are seeing our numbers soar way outside the dating site scenario...as people realise the full potential of connecting online with sanity!
Duly noted. The scary part is that reports like this can be used to feed the execs and newsroom heads who think they don't have to change.
Boomers are dying, alas, and the key question about our future lies five years down the road, when more are gone and far fewer young folks have replaced them.
Nothing wrong with milking the golden cow until it's dry (to introduce a tortured metaphor), but developing business models for a post-pulp world has to be Job 1 at this point.
newspapers mistakenly think that adding video and pushing people from print to online is the answer. Boomers don't want to go online to "learn more", "interact", or give "feedback." They just want to finish their broadsheet and go to work. I think it would be interesting to see how their online papers' traffic fares in the coming years. I doubt that they are attracting younger users online. If you check the Alexa.com ranking of the larger newspapers, you'll see a decline over the last year in their online traffic over the previous five years.