Comments on: Study: 74% adults read print or web newspapers

By: Ted Rall

Ted Rall — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:18:25 +0000

@Xavier: I agree, the lack of a print vs. web breakdown is frustrating.

The real trouble is that there’s growth online vs. decline in print–while ad rates are dismal online, “replacing print dollars with digital pennies,” as the expression goes.

We know that people like to read news. The trouble is how to finance news when news providers insist on providing it to people in a medium that doesn’t support advertising at sufficiently high levels.

Blow up the Internet! I would pay to read TDC in print.

By: Aaron Taylor

Aaron Taylor — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:05:26 +0000

I think it should read “74-year-old adults read print newspapers”

By: xaviar xerexes

xaviar xerexes — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:51:48 +0000

Without a breakdown of % that reads on paper versus online and demographic information (age, income, etc) for each subset then this survey result is kind of useless.

People still read news – probably people are reading more news than ever. The question of the day is “how many people are reading their news on print” and who are those people (if they’re all over 65 that’s as relevant as the total number).

And none of these numbers in and of themselves answer the questions about how many people actually read comics in the newspaper — not everyone reads all of the comics in the paper let alone any.

By: Stephen Beals

Stephen Beals — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:21:10 +0000

So newspapers are holding on to their audience but nobody wants to pay for them.

Great.