How Irrelevant Is Print Media? Here's A Quantitative Look

In an article this week on Statista, Data Journalist Felix Richter took a look at the relevance of print media as a news source and arrives to the conclusion that it is, unsurprisingly, waning.

The author noted the difference between the old days, when people needed to check the newspapers to keep up with current events; In modern times,  smartphones and real-time information sources like Twitter Inc TWTR make most of the news featured on newspapers “obsolete,” in a way.

So as news sources continue to evolve and news consumption patterns change hand in hand, print media is the main victim. According to data published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, most people around the globe have already turned to non-print sources to get up to speed with current events.

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Television continues to be the No. 1 source of news, followed by online media. Social media, in particular, is consistently gaining traction and displacing more traditional media outlets.

“As people turn to other media outlets as their primary source of information, print newspapers are probably best advised to accept their new role and focus on their core strengths, which are local reporting, investigative journalism and in-depth analyses of national and global affairs,” Richter notes.

The chart below shows which sources are considered the most important in five different countries in three continents.

Although shares of Twitter lost almost 8 percent over the past year, Social Media & Networking stocks in general have gained more than 29 percent, comfortably outperforming the S&P 500. SINA Corp SINA has surged almost percent, same as Facebook Inc FB.

Consumer Publishing has performed in line with the S&P 500, having returned 7.92 percent in the past year, versus the S&P’s 7.71 percent. Pearson PLC (ADR) PSO, is up 3.13 percent, while Time Inc TIME returned only 0.69 percent.

The Broadcasting industry surged almost 24 percent since June 20, 2014, with CBS Corporation CBS down 0.55 percent and Grupo Televisa SAB (ADR) TV up 14.3 percent.