More than half of newspaper readers prefer online news, according to a survey of British and American media users. But for magazines it is the other way around. More than half of magazine readers prefer paper.
Newspapers and magazines have been busy digitizing content and expanding their channels for the past 10 years. In addition to the traditional paper newspapers and magazines, a variety of apps, online platforms and social media channels have been added. Logically, the media consumer is increasingly turning to a screen and media brands go along with the changing behavior of their target groups.
UK and US media consumer survey
In a major investigation among 110,000 Britons and 55,000 Americans, conducted by Yougov, people were asked about their preferences: with online newspapers and magazines or with traditional paper products.
Prefer to read news online
In the UK, 54% of media consumers prefer online news. In America, the preference for online news is greater: 60%. The preference for the paper newspaper is mainly among people over 55 years of age. The preference for online news is strongest among a young target group in the UK: 70% among the group between 18 and 14 years and 75% among the group between 25 and 34 years.
Prefer magazines on paper
With magazines you see the opposite picture. A majority of British media consumers prefer paper magazines. 58% of those surveyed have a preference for print. In America, that percentage is lower at 47%.
The graph above shows that it is not only older readers who prefer paper magazines. Across all age groups, the preference for print is higher than the preference for online magazine content. At 55+, 70% prefer print versus 10% online. In the age category between 45 and 54 years, 57% prefer to read from paper, between 35 and 44 years that preference is 50% and of people between 25 and 34 years, 45% opt for print. Only the youngest group between the ages of 18 and 24 has a preference for print at 39%, but slightly higher than the preference for online magazine content at 32%.
You can see that the preference for print is lower among American media consumers. Only the older target groups have a preference for print. Media consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 prefer to read their magazine content online.
generation gap
The graphs above clearly show that there is a big difference in the media behavior of younger and older consumers. That in itself makes sense. Those who have come of age in the pre-internet era have a more traditional media diet. Growing up with an abundance of online content, you probably prefer news consumption via an app or a screen. The advice to publishers is not to lump all readers together. Where channel choices used to be mainly made by publishers and they determined how consumers should read (this story is only in print, so go to the newsstand), you now see a shift that stories are published in many different ways (print, online, text and audio). In this way, consumers can choose for themselves how they prefer to take in stories.