Newspaper Readership

I came across some interesting research in a recent Advertising Age (4-28-03) on media consumption by age group.

People under 55 spend less that 20 minutes a day with a local daily newspaper. They spend 36-46 minutes on the Internet. The over 60 demographic spends 56 minutes with a local paper and less than 14 with the Internet.

Long term this is bad news for newspapers. Their most devoted readers are term-limited by the actuary tables. And it isn't likely that younger groups will fill the gap.

Further, advertising professionals covet those younger groups and discount the value of older reader/viewers. This means that daily newspapers as a channel are going to face pressures on ad rates (their key revenue source).

Right now newspapers are aided by their unchallenged dominance as a local advertising channel-- nothing else can really do the job when it comes to promoting a sale at a local department store store or specials at the grocery and nothing else can match newspapers for classified ads.

This advantage is eroding. Technology, demographics, and business necessity will see to that.

For instance, it makes little sense for Sears, which desperately wants to reach younger shoppers, to continue to pour ad money into newspapers if those young shoppers don't read newspapers.

As on-line and catalogue merchants increase market share, local bricks and mortar stores will represent a smaller portion of the advertising spending in a given category.

The concentrated local audience of the daily newspaper is important if you own one or two grocery stones in one town. You want to get your message to 20,000 people who actually can shop at your store, not 300,000 on the Internet scattered across the country. But if you are Wal*Mart, with thousands of stores, many of those 300,000 can shop at one of your outlets. Suddenly, on-line advertising makes sense even for groceries.

Eventually, on-line news sources and communities focused on specific geographic localities may provide a realistic alternative to local newspapers. If so, then they become a potential advertising vehicle.