The Reynolds Journalism Institute just released part 2 of its 10-part series on mobile. This second installment included an interesting section on news consumption through mobile devices.
…two-thirds (67%) of mobile media owners ages 18-34 used their devices to access local, national and international news provided by news organizations for an average of five hours per week.
Interestingly, the percentage dropped a bit for those ages 35-54 (62%), but the amount of time spent increased slightly (5.6 hours per week).
And the drop off was larger for those 55+.
Mobile media owners 55 and older were somewhat less likely to use their devices for consuming news. Nearly three-out-of-five (58%) in this age group said they used their devices for this purpose an average of 4.0 hours per week.
The lead researcher on the project, Roger Fidler, believes this may be a by-product of the fact that the older demographic is also more likely to have print subscriptions to newspapers and news magazines.
The news interest among those in the younger demographic is encouraging for those who worried that the audience for news was literally dying off.
But while news organizations are scrambling to deliver content on mobile devices, they must also be thinking about how to get the consumer to pay for the privilege.
Remember the Web? All that lovely, free content? Mobile offers many of the same opportunities and pitfalls.
