The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released a report on the mobile news consumption habits of US young adults. If you’re interested in the future of news there are some very interesting findings that have practical implications for news publishers.
One of the those findings has to do with the fact that although younger consumers have largely abandoned print newspapers they still want a “print-like” experience of news on their tablets.
According to the study the tablet-news audience is somewhat more likely to be male than female, although that will likely change over time. Beyond this there are numerous demographic findings in the report. Indeed, the report is called “The Demographics of Mobile News.”
One of those findings is the discovery that younger audiences (18-29) are much more likely to engage with (touch) ads on tablets vs. older users of news content.
Pew also found that news consumption on smartphones and tablets happens more often through the mobile web vs. apps. But the app-using audience tends to be more engaged and better educated.
Some of this could be correlated with iPad ownership vs other tablets.
The Pew survey found that iPad owners are generally better educated and more affluent than Android tablet owners. That makes sense because many of the bestselling Android tablets (e.g., Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire) are priced much more aggressively than the iPad or iPad Mini.
I would also imagine that iPad audiences are going to be somewhat more inclined toward apps (vs. Android tablet owners) as well.
There are many more findings and discussion of their implications for news consumption in the full report. You can access it here.
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