News Right Now Drives Newspaper Readers to Web

The Outsell third annual News Users' research predicts continued steep drops in US newspapers' print circulation as consumers continue to gravitate toward the Internet for news.

The firm forecasts 3.5% annual declines in both daily and Sunday circulation, leading to a low of 43 million Sunday newspaper readers by 2012, compared to more than 62 million in the early 1990s. The research underscores the dramatic effect that aggregators such as Google and Yahoo have had on both print and online readership. For "news right now," 57% of news users now go to digital sources, up from 33% a few years ago. 31% are likelier to turn to an aggregator than a newspaper site (8%) or other site (18%).