Saturday, March 21, 2009

Pew: "Chilling Numbers"

Bad news #1: The number of Americans who regularly go online for news, jumped 19% in the last two years, according to one survey; in 2008 alone traffic to the top 50 news sites rose 27%.

Bad news #2: It is now all but settled that advertising revenue -- the model that financed journalism for the last century -- will be inadequate to do so in this one. Growing by a third annually just two years ago, online ad revenue to news websites now appears to be flattening; in newspapers it is declining.

Only cable news really flourished in 2008, thanks to an Ahab-like focus on the 2008 election, although some of the ratings gains were erased after the election.

From: State of the News Media 2009

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