Newspaper readership steady among the old and dying
The Readership Institute of Northwestern U has a new study out that shows that, compared to its 2006 study, those 45 years and older continue to read newspapers, while the 18-24 year olds continue to drift away from their daily exercise in origami.
Further, people continue to spend 27 minutes a day reading the paper, except on Sundays when the new average of 57 minutes continues its decline since 2002. Maybe we’re just getting better at doing the sudokus. People say they complete 60% of the paper on weekdays and 62% on Sunday.
By the way, Google tells me that the average reading speed is 230 words per minute. That means people on average read 6,200 words of their paper on weekdays. According to a person at Metafilter, if you read all the articles on the front page of the NY Times (including their continuation inside), you would have read 12,900 words.
Therefore, people are reading 60% of the newspaper only if by that you mean that they read half the articles on the front page and then stop.
Well, in fairness to the old, we’re ALL dying — and at the same rate, for the most part!
“obituaries are the killer app for newspapers”
(sorry, had to say it)
what do you mean by front page ?
I have to say that if I could only pick one demographic to appeal to, it would be people who are going to die.
\-\/\/
Gianluca, at risk of missing sarcasm on your part, by ‘front page’ I mean the literal first page of the paper-based version of the NYT.
david,
you mean they print it too ?
why ?
joking eh