Online newspaper audience declining; older media consumers moving to social media

These are some of the findings of a new survey by IBM’s Media and Entertainment group, part of the company’s Institute for Business Value. The findings are to be released in coming weeks in presentations and a white paper. The implications are important for those in the news business and illustrate that newspapers may have […]

These are some of the findings of a new survey by IBM’s Media and Entertainment group, part of the company’s Institute for Business Value. The findings are to be released in coming weeks in presentations and a white paper.

The implications are important for those in the news business and illustrate that newspapers may have less time than they were counting on to figure out how to succeed online.

“The only digital media category where I saw erosion year over year was online newspapers,” from roughly 64 percent in 2008 who said they had viewed a newspaper online, to 54 percent in 2009, said Karen Feldman, global lead for the media and entertainment group and one of the survey’s lead authors. IBM surveyed 3,327 people internationally, 900 of them in the United States, in a random sample constructed to match the digital media consuming population.

Meanwhile, use of digital media overall increased, led by older consumers, who accounted for the largest percentage increases in the use of social media, Feldman and her colleagues found.

For years, many in the media industry have operated on the understanding that younger generations are changing their habits while an older “embedded base” of consumers sticks with them, providing the eyeballs and cash flow to cushion the blow and help the transition to digital media. The IBM media study, the third annual one calls that thinking into question.

“We and everyone else has talked about the notion of a digital divide for years now,” Feldman said. “What this is suggesting is, ‘Look out,’ it’s not as black and white as that. You can’t just keep the status quo for your traditional media, because you’re going to see a blending” that incorporates digital media with the traditional.