A new survey, conducted in the US, on media usage from the Opinion Research Corporation (OPC) confirms what newspaper publishers have long feared: Americans are abandoning print daily newspapers for information in favour of online news. The OPC also found a slightly smaller decrease in the number of people turning to TV news, according to the report published in MediaPost. However, there were also some unexpected gains for traditional media, including a greater reliance on radio for news and information. OPC's survey of 1,000 adults from Sept. 10-13 assessed the proportion of their total news consumption contributed by various news outlets. The survey found that daily newspaper usage dropped 4.1 per cent to 19.4 per cent, while television news dropped 3.6 per cent to 31.1 per cent this year compared to 2008. By contrast, online news usage increased 1.9 per cent to 14.6 per cent, and radio increased 2.9% per cent to 19.4 per cent. Weekly community newspapers fell 0.7 per cent to 4.4 per cent. The increase in online news consumption was led by disproportionately larger increases among a number of key demographics, including college-educated people (20 per cent), and people with household incomes over US$100,000 a year (23.1 per cent). Adults ages 18-34 also got more news from online sources, at 22.2 per cent. OPINION/FEEDBACK TO THE EDITOR
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