17 August
2007

















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     dead media?

A report from the Shorenstein Center claims that the net is "redistributing the US news audience".

     the report

The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics & Public Policy at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government claims that

Like the cable and broadcast revolutions, the Internet revolution is redistributing the news audience in ways that has and will continue to benefit some news outlets, while harming others.

Its 20 page Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Look at News on the Internet report (PDF) essentially repackages data from a commercial metrics specialist. Drawing on information regarding estimates of traffic to 160 US sites over a year-long period, the researchers conclude that traffic to newspaper sites has leveled off.

However, the web sites of 'national' newspapers such as the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today are gaining audience, with traffic increasing by an average of 10% over the past year. The sites of most other newspapers have lost audience: their sites have substantially fewer visitors than a year ago, irrespective of whether the imprint is located in a large or small city.

The sites of US 'national' television networks such as CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox gained traffic during the year, with an average increase of 30%. Local commercial television and radio station sites also gained audience, although at a slower pace.

The report argues that the largest audience increases relate to non-traditional news providers, including services that feature content from newspaper sites. Unsurprisingly,

the sites of search engines, service providers, aggregators, and bloggers grew faster on average than the sites of traditional news providers, whether print, broadcast, or cable. The sites of Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN, along with sites such as newsvine.com, topix.net, digg.com and reddit.com, saw large increases in traffic during the past year.

Shorenstein's researchers echo the now traditional lament that

The Web particularly threatens daily newspapers. They were among the first to post news on the Internet but their initial advantage has all but disappeared in the face of increased competition from electronic media and non-traditional providers. The Internet is also a larger threat to local news organizations than those with national reputations. Because it reduces the influence of geography on people’s choice of a news source, the Internet inherently favors “brand names”—those relatively few news organizations that readily come to mind by Americans everywhere when they seek news on the Internet.

The report goers on to offer conventional wisdom, albeit without recourse to recent buzzwords such as 'hyperlocalism'

Although the increase in Web traffic to the sites of non-traditional news providers is a threat to traditional news organizations, the latter do have strengths they can leverage on the Web. Local news organizations are “brand names” within their communities, which can be used to their advantage. Their offline audience reach can also be used effectively to drive traffic to their sites. Most importantly, they have a product—the news—that is in public demand.

 

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