Some 50 million Americans turn to the internet for news on a typical day, a new highwater mark for online news-gathering that coincides with rapid growth of broadband adoption in American homes.Coincidently today, the Wall Street Journal published an article talking about how newspapers are struggling to find young readers and keep ad revenue up.
Over the last four years, overall internet penetration rose from 58% of all adult Americans to 70%, and home broadband penetration grew from 20 million people (or 10% of adult Americans) to 74 million people (37% of adult Americans).
Some traditional, big-ticket advertisers are changing their habits. Department-store chains, which have long been major advertisers, are consolidating and cutting their newspaper ad spending, according to Borrell Associates Inc., which provides advertising advice to media companies. Local car dealers, another big source of revenue, are switching more of their ad spending to the Web to reach car buyers online.Evidence of this locally can be seen at the Star Tribune where advertising revenue dropped 5.1 percent in February.
Newspapers' classified-ad business -- a major source of revenue for many papers for decades -- also faces competitors on the Web. One is Craigslist, an online classified service operating in 190 markets, which allows users to post free ads for jobs, housing, goods and services. Craigslist makes money by charging for employment listings in three of its markets -- New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Sites such as Monster.com, where people look for jobs and workers, and eBay.com, where consumers buy and sell items, also compete with newspaper classified ads.
**UPDATE** - Pioneer Press ad linage plunges in February
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