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GENERATIONS
How demographics affect decisions in journalism.
Transformational changes in American society are also forcing dramatic changes in the way newspapers do businessand research. From the earliest national readership research forty years ago, to the latest and most wide-reaching study by the Readership Institute in 2001, it is dear that aging is among the trends that will have the most profound effect on readership.
As editors and publishers seek data to help them provide unique, relevant value to readers and to compete in an increasingly competitive media world, the research focus is changing from simple head-counting (i.e., "did you read a newspaper yesterday?") to understanding how media are used-the habits of news consumers. Research has consistently shown that the best news consumer is likely to be someone older than 55. And especially in light of this demographic fact, complex questions for the future remain:
* In order to keep the older, core readers, will newspapers have to develop new, separate products for younger, less frequent readers?
* How can editors show older readers that the newspaper cares about their issues?
* How do newspapers handle the paradox of an older readership base with disposable income, on the one hand, and advertisers who want to target 18-year-olds, on the other (Smith,1997)?
The puzzle only gets more complicated as the huge baby boom generation begins to turn '55 in 2001. And after 2011, the oldest of the boomers will begin to enter the ranks of the elderly, swelling that population to more than 18 percent of the total population after 2020. The next quartercentury and beyond will be dominated by older adults (see Figures 1 and 2) (Reinhardt,1997).
Research has provided some clues about how the growing numbers of older people will affect news consumption. Interest in news increases with age, as does civic participation, and both are linked to newspaper readership. Boomers' concerns such as parenting and personal finance already have emerged as popular interests in readership studies. But problems have become apparent. Beginning in 1967, with the coming of age of large numbers of boomers and the entry of large numbers of women into the workforce, newspaper readership and the number of households reached have steadily declined. Since the late 1970s, many newspapers...