Following my post earlier this week about media trends, we have been asked specifically about how the drive to online is affecting newspaper readership.  We have updated the Media Trends report with some new statistics to highlight this.  The report can be downloaded by clicking the link below:

DOWNLOAD MEDIA TRENDS REPORT

There is a popular perception that people are buying less newspapers because they are consuming their news online.  However the reality is not as clear cut

Certainly newspaper circulation figures are declining, but not at the same rate that online readership is increasing.  The implication is that while some people have made the decision not to buy and read a print newspaper, many others are doing both.  The chart below shows the total circulation of national newspapers compared to the total number of visitors to those newspapers websites (please be aware that the latter is a gross figure and therefore will double-count some people).

According to Metrica’s latest UKPulse survey, 66% of people still regularly read a national daily newspaper while just 26% regularly read the online equivalent.  20% do both, which means that around three quarters of the readers of national newspaper websites also read a printed newspaper.

If you haven’t already done so, please vote on what you think will happen to news consumption in the future.