Report: Only 3 percent of newspaper reading is done online
Fairly fainting from frivolousness, I accidentally wandered onto the Nieman Journalism Lab site the other day.
This is a group of people who seem associated with Harvard, and are trying to make sense of that strange thing that some describe as "quality journalism."
I went there for a little heavy relief again Tuesday and discovered a very interesting tract, written by Martin Langeveld.
You know I won't get all the numerical nuances right when I tell you that he stared at a lot of numbers, accessed a number of electronic fingers for help, made one or two reasonably educated spread bets and came up with the node-stopping conclusion that only 3 percent of newspaper reading happens online.
Yes, I thought you'd say that.
So, let me relay just a couple of his thoughts before you wander over there to delve into his full logic and that of his remarkably civilized commenters.
(Credit:
CC BA Sykes/Flickr)
In the absence of any remotely accurate research, he estimated that the average print reader gives 25 minutes of his or her daily life to the newspaper. And 35 minutes on a Sunday.
He also estimated that the average print reader looks at (and, goodness, looking is such a nuanced idea) 24 pages in that newspaper. Which is roughly half the newspaper pages that are published in the US.
Finally, he chose to believe the Newspaper Association of America's research that 2.128 readers peruse every print copy.
On the online side, Mr. Langeveld turned to Nielsen, which declared that in 2008 newspapers enjoyed 3.2 billion page views per month. Which is 3.5 percent of the 87.1 billion printed page views he calculated for print, using the assumptions above.
You'll get no more figures out of me. However, is it possible that, if these calculations are even remotely accurate, they suggest that advertisers decided, one fine day, that print newspapers were simply not where it was at anymore?
As they themselves read news online, Twittered, Facebooked and exclusively met lovers on Match.com, they couldn't believe that anyone read print newspapers anymore. Perhaps those who do are, for some bizarre reason, simply not attractive to advertisers.
Or perhaps there came a day when advertisers just didn't believe the print newspaper industry's figures anymore.
Don't ask me, ask these clever Harvard chaps. I am sure they're working on this while you have your dinner.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
one quick example, "in 2008 newspapers enjoyed 3.2 billion page views per month." Which I interpret to mean that they only take the page views from newspaper websites. There are plenty of other news sites without a printed paper that should be included in this number.
I want a high res flexible display that mirrors a newspaper. It has to be touchscreen have wifi and able to download content over the air via 3G. It needs to automatically update articles and have a full web browser built in. I want all this to be free so load it full of advertising, flash ads of course.
It's the same way at looking at any information (go read Edward Tufte if you're serious). If I want to know the next five BART trains traveling from Civic Center to Montgomery Station, looking at the whole timetable grid is not easier to read than something that focuses on my exact needs.
You need to understand when/how information is presented and that these factors change regularly, depending on the user and his/her needs.
I read my local newspaper the, San Diego Union-Tribune online, www.signonsandiego.com and yes it could certainly be laid out better. Not all stories has its own navigation link, ofttimes there are several unrelated stories under one link, I guess that they want to you read the whole website. An important story will stand by itself.
They also have one of the lamest police blotters I have seen. In a metro area of 2 million people with dozens if not hundreds of police incidents per day there may 5-6 reports in the paper. The police department has a comprehensive website with statistics and all of that, but not a lot of story about an incident
Of course, even re-crunching the numbers with what I would consider more legitimate estimates only shows about 13% of online reading occurs online, versus 87% for print. Of course, this probably doesn't count non-newspaper news sites (such as Cnet?), which I'm sure would significantly increase the online view count.
My 30 YO son on the other hand gets his news exclusively from the internet, although he admits a main reason is because his NY Times delivery was sporadic in his area and he gave up on it.
Basically, who cares about how many people read the NYTimes tech section online vs in print. How many people don't read it at all in favor of say... news.cnet.com, which doesn't have a print equivalent?
- by sjohnson29 April 17, 2009 1:14 PM PDT
- Could it possibly be that people don't like to pay for a newspaper when they can get their news online for free? Does no one ever think of that? Or that advertisers abandon traditional media advertising because they can't accurately measure the results? We all know that internet ads are much cheaper and the results are (more) measurable. It's competition that is killing traditional media business models.
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(12 Comments)That said, I don't have a basis to argue with the points of the Harvard folks. How does one truly measure how many people read newspapers. I guess they can see subscriptions are down. And take surveys with their much maligned statistics. But like others here have stated, most newspaper websites are awful so I'd much rather read a physical paper. It's also sitting there staring me in the face on my kitchen table where websites are not. I have to find a reason to go to them.