Every two years the esteemed Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. releases the results of an exhaustive survey that reveals where people go to get their news and information. The latest biennial report has some fascinating data that goes beyond confirming the migration of news consumers to the web that we are all familiar with. It also shows that the demographics of the web audience is far more attractive to advertisers than the audience still relying on traditional media. 

Pew broke survey respondents into four distinct categories:

• Integrators (23% of the public) - they get their news from multiple mediums led by TV, radio and the Internet.

• Net-Newsers (13%) - It's the web only for the younger crowd.

• Traditionalists (46%) - They stick to old school media.

• Disengaged (14%) - They have little interest in news no matter where it comes from.

While the traditional sector is still the largest, it is rapidly shrinking and those users are the oldest with an average age of 52. In addition, they are the least educated. 60% have no more than a high school education and 43% are unemployed. By contrast, the Integrators are affluent and highly educated. The Net-Newsers are also affluent and even more highly educated (eight of ten have at least some college). The Net-Newsers are also the youngest with an average age of 35. These are the consumers advertisers covet and that is why ad dollars are flooding the web (and a big reason why domain values have held up well in the midst of a major economic downturn).

Since the1990s, the percentage of Americans who say they read a newspaper on a normal day has plunged by almost 40%; the percentage that regularly watches network TV news each night  has fallen by 50%. The statistics are stunning and there is a lot more interesting demographic data in the full article, so check it out if you want to learn more about why the place you do business - the Internet - is the place to be.
(Posted Sept. 12, 2008)