Article by Steve Alexander
Published January 22, 2004, the Star Tribune

« … For people under 30, the Internet now rivals newspapers as a source of political campaign news, a recent consumer survey shows.

Analysts say it appears that the Internet has permanently shifted the reading habits of young people, and they are unlikely to take up reading printed newspapers when they grow older as earlier generations did. This raises important questions about the future of daily newspapers and who will read them, analysts said.

"Young people, in particular, are turning away from traditional media sources for information about the campaign," and consuming less information from network news, local TV news and newspapers, said the authors of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press in Washington, D.C.

Instead, many under 30 get their news from a variety of Web sites, including those operated by traditional news media, such as CNN and the New York Times, and from non-traditional news providers such as AOL and Yahoo.

While newspapers have long had a problem attracting young readers, competition from the Internet has significance not only because it cuts into newspaper readership but because it has potentially serious implications for newspaper advertising revenue. A shift of young readers to a newspaper's own Web page might be harmful because online newspaper readers don't draw as many ad dollars as print newspaper readers do…

… But beyond the rise of the Internet as a news source is an even more important demographic trend, said Carroll Doherty, editor of the Pew Research Center. A series of surveys have shown that the current 18-to-29-year-old audience is less interested in news than previous generations.

"Each succeeding generation of under-30s seems less oriented toward newspapers. That's why pessimists foretell the long-term doom of newspapers, but we're not so quick to say that," Doherty said. "Newspapers are still a major source of news for many millions of Americans. So even if the trends are cloudy, newspapers have an enormous base of readers at a time when media fragmentation is considerable"…

… In the Pew survey, 21 percent of people aged 18 to 29 said they get most of their campaign news from the Internet, putting the Net within 10 points of newspapers, the choice of 30 percent of the people in that age group. The percentage of under-30 readers relying on the Internet more than doubled from 9 percent in January 2000. Young people are far more likely than the average person to rely on the Net for campaign news; about 13 percent of all readers in the survey said they get most of their campaign news from the Internet…

… It's not the first time newspapers have faced erosion of the youth audience. For more than 20 years TV has siphoned off young readers and advertising aimed at them, said David Card of New York-based Jupiter Research.

… "The Internet newspaper is causing less damage to newspaper audiences than TV has," Card said.

Allen Weiner of Connecticut research firm Gartner agreed that newspapers are familiar with the problem.

"Newspapers didn't need this Pew survey to tell them they've got an ongoing problem with young readers," Weiner said. "But in the last year, there has been some evidence that newspapers really understand the problem and are taking some steps to get into the game." Among the efforts have been the distribution to young commuters of free printed newspapers containing short articles. Some newspapers also offered young people alternative weekly print publications with a heavy dose of entertainment news.

"Newspapers are going to have adapt to the future by using two of the most important things that are in their favor today: Their name brand and their ability to respond to challenges with a wide array of targeted print products," Weiner said. "In addition, they have to make sure that online readers are their online readers."

But the Internet is creating new problems for newspapers that TV never posed, such as sharply undercutting newspaper ad rates. A display ad that costs $15 to $20 per thousand readers in a newspaper costs $3 or less online, Card said. Classified ads, a major money-maker for printed newspapers, typically are free online, he said.

"The whole question of classified advertising is perhaps where the greater challenge lies," said Tim Ruder, marketing vice president of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, the online arm of the Washington Post. "The Web has allowed national aggregation of those classified listings along with new ways of finding and connecting people. I think newspapers are working to become part of that."

Moyer believes Internet advertising prices will rise, helping to close today's large gap between printed and online advertising rates.

"Internet ad pricing is in its infancy. It will not stay at the same level as there is more demand," Moyer said. "We already have seen a steady rise in advertising pricing in all of the Internet world."

Ruder agreed, and said Washingtonpost.com has raised advertising rates in response to the growth of its Web audience.

The future of newspapers is multimedia, says Card, describing it as a so-called hybrid media strategy in which a holding company owns similarly branded newspaper, TV and Internet operations. That is a way to extend a newspaper's strengths, which are "brand name, content and relationships with advertisers," he said.

"Printed newspapers are not going away in our lifetime," Card said. "But I doubt that a lot of young people who grew up on TV and the Internet are going to retreat to the printed newspaper as they settle into middle age."

The whole article on the Star Tribune website