Greedy investors and monopolistic tech giants are only part of the problem for local journalism.
There is another, more compelling threat to the American news system and the civic literacy and engagement it supports.
A huge wave of streaming video has invaded our lives, forcing us into screens for much of our waking hours.
According to a recent Nielsen report, Americans streamed a total of 21 million years worth of video last year, a 21% increase over the 17 million years worth the year before (though the user base has also changed). According to the study, we now spend more than 10 hours a day on media, which is about half of the amount we spend on television content.
Measurements of time spent reading newspapers online go in the opposite direction.
Chartbeat, a company used by 60,000 media companies to measure their digital audiences, reported that people spent 228 billion minutes with their customers’ news content last year.
This is a 37% decrease compared to the 361 billion minutes of engagement reported the previous year. And there are 525,600 minutes in a year.
This highlights the economic challenges for newspapers trying to build their future online.
And how urgent it is to preserve and expand the work of newsrooms, preferably with support from Congress, to produce unique materials and services worth keeping on Americans’ ever-growing subscription lists. It highlights what it is. That, in turn, will preserve local news coverage, which is essential to a healthy democracy.
“There’s no question that the challenges are significant. But there are also green shoots,” says Larry DeGaris, executive director of the Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University’s Medill School.
DeGalis said some recent trends suggest that the tried-and-true methods for newspaper success remain effective and are helping newspapers reach online readers.
This offers a glimmer of hope if local news organizations can weather the current period of turmoil.
The Spiegel Center runs a model that tracks the online performance of 107 U.S. newspapers.
There are some surprising insights about online newspaper visitors, including the finding that regularity is more important than duration or page views.
In other words, people who visit a newspaper’s website regularly, even for a short period of time, are more likely to continue their subscription.
It’s like Back to the Future. Daily newspapers have long featured games, features, and columns throughout the week to encourage repeat visits, build habits, and increase subscription numbers.
DeGalis pointed to the success of The New York Times’ online game Wordle, which helped the newspaper grow 300,000 subscribers last quarter. Another example: Streaming video companies deliver new episodes of a show over time, rather than binge-watching.
“It’s not that the problem is solved, but it seems like we’re regressing to an older model with newer technology, if we’re comfortable with it,” he said.
Less encouraging is a recent Der Spiegel study showing that from mid-2022 onwards, newspaper readers will be reading newspapers online for fewer days per month. This decrease in regularity indicates that it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain subscribers.
ComScore data compiled by Pew Research shows another metric, the average time spent visiting the top U.S. newspapers online, shows a steady decline. According to the study, the average visit time to the top 50 newspaper websites decreased from just over 2 minutes and 30 seconds at the end of 2014 to just under 1.5 minutes at the end of 2022.
Pugh cautioned that it is difficult to accurately measure a newspaper’s digital audience because many daily newspapers do not receive as much web traffic as can be measured by comScore.
Nielsen rubbed salt in the wound by announcing that the top streamed program last year was reruns, or “existing library content.”
The cable TV series “Suits,” which aired from 2011 to 2019, is the most-watched series, with Americans spending 57.7 billion minutes streaming 141 episodes last year.
While their parents watched That and NCIS (39.4 billion minutes last year), kids spent 43.9 billion minutes streaming Disney’s animated show Bluey.
No wonder millions of workers don’t want to return to the office. They just finished halfway through the 421 episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” (a series that streamed 38.6 billion minutes last year) and are hoping to take “Friends” (25 billion minutes) back for another spin.
Academic research shows that when local newspapers disappear, the majority of voters cannot name their mayor or other elected leaders. But it’s not just local news. A YouGov poll last week found that only about half of Americans are aware of the criminal charges and civil court judgments against former President Donald Trump.
But we’re being forced into “NCIS.”
Another company, Leichtman Research Group, found that 88% of American households subscribed to a video streaming service last year, and 53% subscribed to four or more services.
By comparison, 21% of Americans paid for online news last year, according to the Reuters Institute’s annual report on digital news. The average for the 20 countries surveyed was 17%, followed by Norway at 39% and Sweden at 33%.
Only 19% of Americans who subscribe to online news pay for local news, and the median number of news subscriptions is 2. Most of them pay subscription fees to national newspapers.
And by 2022, there will be 20 million daily paper subscribers, representing 16% of U.S. households.
Some newspapers, including this one, have successfully made the digital transition to reach younger readers. One reason is that they are finding new ways to maintain coverage, such as supporting charities.
However, a recent spate of news layoffs and continued newspaper closures suggest that the industry as a whole will report less news this year, even as elections approach, and that the industry as a whole will be reporting less news this year, and is in a position to stop the decline. Unless there is some intervention.
Thankfully, a spin-off of “SUITS” is in the works.
This is an excerpt from our free weekly Voices for a Free Press newsletter. Sign up to receive it on the Save the Free Press website at st.news/SavetheFreePress. Briar Dudley of the Seattle Times is editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about issues facing newspapers, local news reporting and free press. Learn more about the Free Press Initiative at company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press or sign up for our newsletter.
