As someone whose livelihood has, at times, depended on the number of people who buy and read newspapers, I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news: A media monitoring firm says that non-newspaper readers are likely to be younger, and spend more time than others at online news sites. Meanwhile, heavy newspaper readers are more likely than average to engage with traditional print news brands online.
“That current generations are growing up getting their news online for free is an indicator that print circulations are likely to continue their decline,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of media monitoring firm comScore Inc.. “But the Internet represents a significant opportunity to extend – and even improve upon – existing news brands and reach out to new consumers with living, breathing real-time content. Just because print circulations are declining does not mean there are fewer news consumers. In fact, just the opposite is true.”
The conclusions are based on some U.S. data but I suspect the general trend likely holds for Canada.

Technorati Tags: ,