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http://www.smh.com.au/news/0008/10/business/business4.html
News enthusiasts find the Internet more appealing
By ANNE DAVIES
Each time newspaper circulations figures are released, there's another
round of speculation within the industry about whether falling sales are
due in part to people choosing to read the news online rather than shell
out $1 for the printed version.
Last week's figures were no exception. They showed most metropolitan
dailies' circulations either static or falling.
In Sydney The Sydney Morning Herald (Monday to Friday) slipped 0.85 per
cent in the year to June 30, while The Telegraph lost 4.11 per cent. The
only newspapers to buck the trend were The Australian Financial Review and
to a lesser extent The Australian.
At the same time, news Web sites are showing strong growth in unique
visitors. A quick review of the top Australian Web sites reveals that
online newspapers are expanding rapidly.
Surely it must be affecting circulation? So far, the research shows that
the early casualty of the Net might not be newspapers but free-to-air
television.
SNIP
In Australia the trend seems to be the same. According to Roy Morgan
Research, of all people over 14 years, less than 1 per cent reported
watching TV more often since using the Internet, while 8.4 per cent said
they used TV less often. The figures are based on data collected between
July 1999 and March 2000.
SNIP
The Morgan research suggests so far the loss of readers is not great. Of
all people over 14, 3.2 per cent of those who use the Net said they were
reading newspapers less often but 2 per cent said they were reading
newspapers more often. It is a net loss of about 100,000 readers.
Bill D'Arcy
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