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The digital revolution has created a seismic shift in the newsmedia audience in the United States, away from local and network television watching and into digital media usage, including mobile, tablet and computer-based Internet usage. Digital media use saw a 7.2 percent increase in audience from 2011 to 2012, while cable television audience increased 0.8 percent, according to Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism 2013. Meanwhile, traditional media use took a beating, led by local television with a 6.5 percent drop in audience, followed by network TV with a 1.9 percent decrease and newspapers, magazines and audio with a 0.2 percent or 0.1 percent drop.

Revenue growth and decline roughly followed the usage patterns, but in a more pronounced way, according to the Pew study.  Local television ad revenue plummeted 10.4 percent, while network TV dropped 5.9 percent.  Digital ad revenue surged 16.6 percent, while cable advertising grew 10.1 percent; audio, 5.4 percent; magazines, 2.4 percent; and newspapers, 1 percent.  Part of the growth is due to the bounceback effect from the 2008 and 2009 economic crisis, and part is a result of publishers and broadcasters scrambling to cut costs and build new revenues to remain competitive and innovative.

The data set is a part of a collection of 500 revenue and usership trends in mobile, social, Internet, tablet, video and other digital categories, published in the 200-page Global Digital Media Trendbook 2013. GDMT, in its eight year, is to be published by World Newsmedia Network, a not-for-profit media research company, in September 2013. To subscribe to the PDF report and/or the tablet edition, go to www.wnmn.org, or contact mstone@wnmn.org.