The Pew Research Center has released its 12th annual State of the News Media Report, which it has broken down into 13 areas of interest:
- Local TV News
- Network News
- Cable News
- Audio
- Podcasting
- Public Broadcasting
- Newspapers
- News Magazines
- Alternative Weeklies
- Digital News Revenue
- Digital News Audience
- African American Media
- Hispanic Media
This year, Pew is leading with the impact of mobile, noting that at the start of the year, 39 of the top 50 digital news websites derive more traffic from mobile devices than from desktop computers.
Among Pew’s Findings:
- For half of the top 50 news sites, desktop visitors spent at least
10% more time per visit than did those coming to the site or app on their mobile device. For another 15, the time spent was roughly equal. - Podcast listening is on the rise: As of January 2015, 35% of cellphone-owning adults have listened to online radio in the car, up from 21% in 2013.
- Mobile devices are increasingly the preferred way to listen to podcasts. Of 2.6 billion podcast downloads in 2014, 63% were requested from mobile devices – up from 43% in 2012.
- Though digital ad revenue across all media grew 18% in 2014, for legacy news sectors “significant digital revenues remain largely on the wish list.”
- Most newspaper reading still happens in print. Only 5% read newspapers exclusively on mobile devices.
- Newspaper print ads are producing less revenue (down 5%), while digital ads are producing more revenue (up 3%) – but not enough to make up for the fall in print revenue.