Newspapers struggle to avoid their own obit: "The newspapers will have to be smart about distributing the news in the way [young] consumers want, or they won't be relevant," says Sammy Papert III of Belden Associates, a newspaper research firm.
Indeed, newspapers are trying to reach younger people through quick-read free papers, Spanish-language papers, and stand-alone weekly entertainment tabloids. But most of the new strategies rely on an old standby: ink printed on a page. And that may spell trouble. [...]
Younger people are used to news content on the Internet, which allows them to pick from lists of headlines instead of flipping through pages to find stories that interest them, says Adam Penenberg, assistant professor in the business and economic reporting program at New York University. "They customize their news-gathering experience in a way a single paper publication could never do"
Unread and Unsubscribing: The circulation of daily U.S. newspapers is 55.2 million, down from 62.3 million in 1990. The percentages of adults who say they read a paper "yesterday" are ominous:
? 65 and older -- 60 percent.
? 50-64 -- 52 percent.
? 30-49 -- 39 percent.
? 18-29 -- 23 percent.
Americans ages 8 to 18 spend an average of 6 hours and 21 minutes a day with media of all sorts but just 43 minutes with print media. [...]
The young are voracious consumers of media, but not of journalism. Sixty-eight percent of children 8 to 18 have televisions in their rooms; 33 percent have computers. And if they could have only one entertainment medium, a third would choose the computer, a quarter would choose television. They carry their media around with them: 79 percent of young people ages 8 to 18 have portable CD, tape or MP3 players. Fifty-five percent have hand-held video game players. Sony's PlayStation Portable, which plays music, games and movies, sold more than 500,000 units in the first two days after its March debut.
[Exemplos de tentativas inovadoras:
Time Inc. Plans Long-Term Mobile Strategy: The mobile channel helps magazines not just extend their brand reach, but also interact with subscribers between publication dates. New revenue streams like premium rate SMS services, paid content and commercial database sponsorship are other advantages.
FM broadcasts proposed for cell phones: Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Infinity Broadcasting [...] announced a plan to introduce what they call Visual Radio. The technology would combine the traditional over-the-air FM broadcast -- through a receiver included in the phone -- with text and graphics displayed on the phone's screen.]
