Link: Younger, Heavy Online News Consumers are Not Newspaper Readers, According to comScore Plan Metrix.

OK, so the fact that young people DON’T read newspapers these days sounds like research from the School of the Blinkin’ Obvious (SB0) at the Faculty of Not Rocket Science (FNRS), but read on….

The research from ComScore shows that contrary to popular belief, while young people (18-24) in the US may not read on paper, they are still often heavy consumers of news. The research finds that non-newspaper readers particularly enjoy websites of TV news stations in the US, like Fox New, CNN.com and CBS.

“TV news brands are also heavily visited by non-print newspaper readers,
underscoring the importance of sight, sound and motion to the digital news
experience.

Non-readers were 29 percent more likely than the average Internet
user to visit FoxNews.com and 15 percent more likely to visit CBS News Digital.”

We need to be careful about how we translate this to the UK. The BBC has struggled to engage with younger users at its BBC News site. Although this may have something to do with the the fact that younger groups sometimes view the BBC brand as traditional and old-fashioned. But the conclusions of the research could suggests that Five News has the right approach in reaching out to audiences on MySpace.

Those that believe in quality journalism may worry that a generation is coming through who do not feel obliged to pay their 40 or 70 pence for the news.