A study of so-called Millennials (born since around 1980) ranks the things they actually give money for on the internet. News is at the bottom. At the top: entertainment such as movies, TV, music(!) and games.
Poynter's Rick Edmonds:
The findings come from the Media Insight Project, a joint initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research at the University of Chicago. The researchers surveyed 1045 millennials in January and February of this year, supplemented by focus groups.
The survey found 77 percent had paid in the last year for movies and television, 69 percent for cable, 54 percent for music and 51 percent for video games. Roughly 30 percent had paid for print magazine or newspaper subscriptions. Adding in various digital options, 53 percent pay for some sort of news.
Even among those who say keeping up with news is important to them, only half pay for content, the rest getting what they need free. And even among those who do pay, the largest source of news is free service like Facebook or Google.
What's remarkable about this study is that it was paid for by newspapers, which presumably hoped not to see its rather brutal result.
