Good News, Bad News in New Media Surge

MINNEAPOLIS - The good news is more people are reading, watching and consuming news than ever before. The bad news is it's getting harder to make money doing it.

A new report from the Pew Foundation shows a media world turned upside down and inside out. In the last year, newspaper revenue fell 26 percent, local television revenue fell 22 percent and radio revenue fell 22 percent.

Four in ten people now say they would rather listen to their iPod. And for news, most are turning to the internet, where 59 percent use social media like Facebook or Twitter.

"News is still the killer apps, the killer application," Campbell Mithun media analyst John Rash said. "News has and always will be incredibly important."

Rash says for all the attention on new media, those places are still getting their information and facts from old media reporting.

Consider the Star Tribune. While circulation of the newspaper has slipped steadily, its website had 100 million page views in January -- a local record. The problem is getting users to notice the ads. 79 percent say they've never clicked on an ad.

There is some good news. Cable news is growing, with the biggest gains captured by FOX and their lineup of opinion makers. Yet, for all the opinion and spin in the world, it all becomes so much babble without a consensus on the facts. The question is: who will pay for it?

Many have suggested paying for online content. The Wall Street Journal has paid content, and the New York Times will start next year. But according to the Pew study, 82 percent would simply go elsewhere.

In a related note, the FCC will unveil a plan to make broadband the dominant media form in the U.S. Part of that plan would require local broadcasters, like FOX 9, to give back the second tier of our digital signal, which would then be auctioned off to cell phone providers for mobile internet devices.