New Wave Update

Not unlike the Buggles’ chirping of the 1980s post-mortem “Video Killed the Radio Star” at the dawn of the MTV age, a new Pew Research study reminds us that youtube video is killing the newspaper star. And stomping a little harder on the corpse of the radio star. And threatening the relevance of the flat-footed PR star.

There probably is not a lot here that will surprise savvy Rowdies, but still this is a historic, dramatic and disruptive shift, and therefore worthy of a moment of solemn reflection.

(Moment of solemn reflection.)

Pew tells us that the largest group of consumers, almost half of all Americans, are still “traditionalists” who get their news from traditional outlets, primarily TV news. But about a quarter of us are now “integrators,” who get our news from both the Internet and traditional news, primarily TV. About 13% of us are “net newsers” who get their news from the Internet, including blogs. And about one in five go newsless. The largest and fastest growing segment of the newsless is the 18-24 crowd.

So, what’s the future? Plastics. Beyond that, the latter two groups are growing rapidly, while Senator McCain’s “traditionalists” are shrinking, due to both the steady march of technology adaptation and, well, natural causes.

What does that mean for PR professionals? Well, it doesn’t mean the traditional news media is dead. Yet. Traditional news media should still be a part of most communications plans, particularly those targeting older people with an unhealthy obsession with the weather. But if you’re planning into the future or particularly trying to influence affluent and tech-savvy news junkies, you better swallow your pride and ask the blue haired kid down the hall (Keliher) how a blog, vlog, clog, RSS and news aggregator works.

- Loveland

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