USC Study: Pace of Online Newspaper Readership Accelerating

The time spent reading newspapers online has increased greatly while the pace of online readership has accelerated, according to new findings from the Center for the Digital Future at USC's Annenberg School for Communications. The study reported that Internet users read online newspapers for 53 minutes per week in 2008, up from 41 minutes per week in 2007. "The most significant trend about how Americans are changing their news reading habits may be found in comparing the use of online media by light users versus heavy users," Jeffrey I. Cole, the director of the Center for the Digital Future, said in a statement. "Heavy Internet users spent 65 more minutes per week reading online newspapers than do light readers." As users get more comfortable reading newspapers on the Web, they are also dropping their print subscriptions. Twenty-two percent of Internet users said they no longer pay for print newspapers or magazines because they could access that content online for free. The change in readership habits has happened more swiftly than expected.