One of the nice things about my stay in Walnut Creek with my friends, the Millers, was that every morning, we would send their white Labrador Retriever, Doc Holiday, down the hilly driveway to retrieve the two morning papers...the San Francisco Chronicle and the Contra Costa Times. While it was great fun to see the dog do his job, the real joy was being able to sit down with my morning cup of coffee and read a real newspaper again.
That really isn't very possible here in Ephrata since we are so far away from the major cities that by the time the paper is delivered, the news is many hours old. Sometimes they are printed so early they don't even have the complete ball scores from the previous night's games.
So, I have got in the habit at home of reading my morning news (with coffee) on the Internet. Oh, I have become very used to it and like the freshness of the news and feature articles, but there is just something special about holding a newspaper in one hand and a cup of coffee with the other. A computer mouse just doesn't give the same feeling.
Which brings me to the point of this blog...according to a new survey, nearly one-fifth of Web users who read newspapers now prefer online to offline editions. The first-time study from Internet audience measurement company Nielsen/NetRatings found that 21 percent of those Web users now primarily use online versions of newspapers, while 72 percent still read print editions. The remaining 7 percent split their time between online and offline editions.
This new study reflects a broad trend in the newspaper publishing industry. U.S. newspaper circulation has been falling as audiences increasingly turn to the Internet for news, both on newspaper-run sites and through companies such as Yahoo and Google, which display news gathered from various sources.
Newspaper publishing revenue is growing slowly, but remains in a prolonged slump. Meanwhile, Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo are posting booming revenue gains on a revival in more traditional online advertising, as well as fast-growing Web search ads.
In response to the increased traffic to news sites, the online versions of many major newspapers often now include frequent news updates, original content, message boards and editorial blogs, items not available in the published edition.
The online edition of the New York Times newspaper is the most visited U.S. newspaper site. It had an audience of 11.3 million in May, up 25 percent from a year earlier, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. USA Today had the second-biggest online reach, with an audience of 9.2 million in May, up 15 percent. Rounding out the top three was the Washington Post web site whose audience in May grew 10 percent year over year to 7.4 million.
By contrast, Yahoo News had an online audience of 23.8 million in May and the audience for Google News was 7.1 million.
So how do you like to get your news?
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