The Pew Research Center has released the 10th edition of its State of the News Media report. In it, they identified six major trends, here in tweetable format for your reading pleasure:
The effects of a decade of newsroom cutbacks are real – and the public is taking notice. (TWEET THIS)
- Nearly a third of U.S. adults have stopped turning to a news outlet because it no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting.
- Newspaper newsroom cutbacks continued, putting the number of full-time professional employees below 40,000 for the first time since 1978.
- In local TV, sports, weather and traffic account for approximately 40% of the content produced.
- On CNN produced story packages were cut nearly in half from 2007 to 2012.
- Across the three cable channels, coverage of live events and live reports during the day, which often require a crew and correspondent, fell 30% from 2007 to 2012 while interview segments, which tend to take fewer resources and can be scheduled in advance, were up 31%.
The news industry continues to lose out on the bulk of new digital advertising. (TWEET THIS)
- Mobile advertising grew 80% in 2012 to $2.6 billion. Of that, however, only one ad segment is available to news: display
- Local digital advertising is also growing, up 22% in 2012.
- Improved geo-targeting is allowing many national advertisers to turn to Google, Facebook and other large networks to buy ads that once might have gone to local media.
The long-dormant sponsorship ad category is seeing sharp growth. (TWEET THIS)
- Sponsorship ads rose 38.9%, to $1.56 billion; that followed a jump of 56.1% in 2011. Promoted tweets on Twitter account for some of the growth, along with the rise of native ads—the digital term for advertorials containing advertiser-produced stories—which often run alongside a site’s own editorial content.
- Traditional publications such as The Atlantic and Forbes, as well as digital publications BuzzFeed and Gawker, have relied on native ads to quickly build digital ad revenues, and their use is expected to spread.
The growth of paid digital content experiments may have a significant impact on both news revenue and content. (TWEET THIS)
- 450 of the nation’s 1,380 dailies have started or announced plans for some kind of paid content subscription or pay wall plan
- The New York Times reports that its circulation revenue now exceeds its advertising revenue, a sea change from the traditional revenue split of as much as 80% advertising dollars to 20% circulation dollars.
While the first and hardest-hit industry, newspapers, remains in the spotlight, local TV finds itself newly vulnerable. (TWEET THIS)
- While local TV remains a top news source for Americans, the percentage is dropping—and dropping sharply among younger generations. Regular local TV viewership among adults under 30 fell from 42% in 2006 to just 28% in 2012,
- The most popular local TV topics — weather and breaking news (and to a lesser extent traffic)—are ripe for replacement by any number of web- and mobile-based outlets.
Social media and word-of-mouth leads to deeper news consumption. (TWEET THIS)
- A majority of Americans seek out a full news story after hearing about an event or issue from friends and family
- 15% of U.S. adults get most of their news from friends and family this way, and the vast majority of them (77%) follow links to full news stories. Among 18-to-29 year-olds, the percentage that primarily relies on social media for this kind of news already reaches nearly one-quarter.