ExaggeratingThe Death Of Traditional Media

Originally posted to commcreative.com/blog

With every brand, big or small, clawing to create some tangible value out of all the buzz around social media marketing, let us not forget that traditional media is far from dead.

After yet another year of being declared buried and forgotten, television, radio and even newspapers are still alive. Sure, newspapers weren’t exactly in great shape before the recession. Yes, they’ve been hurt like every other business and yes, just like every other business they’re refining their business model. But before you write up a death certificate for traditional media and leave them out of your marketing plan, consider this:

Television: 99 percent of video viewing was done on a television in the past year; less than 5 percent of TV viewing was DVR or TiVo playback. (Source: Ball State University’s Center for Media Design)

Radio: Broadcast radio (free AM/FM radio) has the largest listening audience of all audio platforms (satellite, iPod, CDs) with 122 minutes of daily use, while CDs are at 72 minutes and portable audio players (iPods/mp3 players) are at 69 minutes. (Source: Ball State University’s Center for Media Design)

Newspapers: 74 percent of adults read newspapers both online and offline. In addition, 82 percent of households with incomes of more than $100,000 read the paper online and/or offline and newspapers are starting to successfully attract 18 to 34 year-olds to their Web sites. (Source: Integrated Newspaper Audience Report from Scarborough.com)

Traditional media isn’t dead, its role is simply evolving as new technologies emerge and the competitive universe grows increasingly crowded.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steeljam/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0