TV still tops with radio and newspapers below online / mobile news

Pew Research says Americans are spending more time catching up on the news but not from newspapers or radio.

TV tops where people got news yesterday. 58% said they watched TV news down 10% from 20 years ago.

Web and mobile are the second most popular source. 44% of people spent time yesterday getting news on their cell phones or on the internet.

Direct internet traffic is now at 34%, up 10% over the past 6 years.

The radio ties internet news at 34% down from 54%.

Newspapers, once the #2 source of news twenty years ago have fallen to only 31% of people.

This trend continues from the study two years ago and was conducted between June 8 and 28, 2010.

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People spent more time getting news than they did before the internet, 13 more minutes a day.

Pew Research says the time Americans are getting news daily is the highest it’s every been. Their study does not include the minutes getting news on cell phones, smart phones, iPads and other mobile devices. We’ll see those numbers in two years.

36% of people get their news from several sources including TV, electronic and newspapers.

Print Newspaper Decline Only Partially Offset by Online Readership

“Only about one-in-four (26%) Americans say they read a newspaper in print yesterday, down from 30% two years ago and 38% in 2006. Meanwhile, online newspaper readership continues to grow and is offsetting some of the overall decline in readership. This year, 17% of Americans say they read something on a newspaper’s website yesterday, up from 13% in 2008 and 9% in 2006.”

“But the online audience is only partially stemming the decline in the share of Americans who turn to newspapers; even when all online newspaper readership is included, 37% of Americans report getting news from newspapers yesterday, virtually unchanged from 39% two years ago, but down from 43% in 2006. (These percentages still may miss some people who access newspaper content indirectly through secondary online sources such as news aggregators or search engines.)”

“In general, daily newspaper readers tend to be older on average than the general public, but the regular readership of some of the major national newspapers – USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and especially the New York Times – defy this trend. More than half of regular USA Today and Wall Street Journal (55% each) readers are younger than 50 – a profile that largely matches the nation as a whole (roughly 55% of all adults are between 18 and 49). Fully two-thirds (67%) of regular New York Times readers are younger than 50, with a third (34%) younger than 30 – making its audience substantially younger than the national average (55% younger than 50, 23% younger than 30).”

“The young profile of the regular New York Times readership is undoubtedly linked to the paper’s success online. Nearly one-in-ten of internet users younger than 30 (8%) – and 6% of all internet users – volunteer the New York Times when asked to name a few of the websites they use most often to get news and information.”  Pew Research

“The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent, non-partisan public opinion research organization that studies attitudes toward politics, the press and public policy issues. In this role it serves as a valuable information resource for political leaders, journalists, scholars and citizens.”