A rapidly growing number of Americans are increasing their use of online sources for news and information at the expense of other media , according to a national segmentation study conducted by washingtonpost.com in partnership with Nielsen//NetRatings and Scarborough….
A rapidly growing number of Americans are increasing their use of online sources for news and information at the expense of other media , according to a national segmentation study conducted by washingtonpost.com in partnership with Nielsen//NetRatings and Scarborough.
“In the twelve months ending December 2004, 47% of respondents reported significantly increasing their usage of online media for news and information. A smaller number (4%) of those surveyed reported decreasing their usage of the internet for news during the same time period. In contrast, traditional media showed modest gains with radio at 16%, television at 18%, newspapers at 12% and magazines at 15%. However, similar declines were noted for each at -12%, -20%, -18% and -18%, respectively.
“Users cited 24-hour availability, ability to multi-task while browsing, breaking news, easy ability to search and free access as the top reasons for preferring to get their news online. ”
Other key findings:
• “About half of all online news users are still increasing their use of the Internet, even as this medium reaches saturation. ”
• “For these Internet users, more time is spent online in a given week than with any other medium. In prior research, we?ve always seen the Internet and TV in a close horse race; this year, the Internet has pulled ahead.”
• “When we look specifically at sources for news and information, online pulls far ahead, with 60% of users going online DAILY. Fewer than half use TV or any other source of news on a daily basis.”
The sample is comprised of visitors to news and information sites during the prior 90 days from a survey of 15,000 members of Nielsen//NetRatings MegaPanel in December 2004. The margin of error is ? 2 percentage points.
A PowerPoint of the methodology and full findings may be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/onlinenews
