How Millennials Consume the News
When Brian Williams, undoubtedly one of the highest paid and visible members of the traditional media world, had to apologize for blatant lies on his broadcast, his announcement barely made a blip with the Millennial generation. How is this possible?
Millennials are not watching network news!
Every business that is in the know understands the shift of the Millennial generation towards social media and digital intake. There is virtually no avenue of traditional media that has been able to break into this exclusive club for any extended period of time, and when they do, the best that they get is a short uptick in viewership for an individual event or program, usually entertainment.
No, the generation from 18 to 34 is consuming news through social media, creating individualized networks that tend to block out anything that is not directly related to the interests of that person or his or her social circle. Basically, if no one within a group of friends watches NBC Nightly News, then the so called huge event of Brian Williams making a gaffe is literally non-visible on the screens that these people are looking at.
Many of the older generations believes that Millennials are not concerned with news because they do not consume it through network TV or radio or newspaper. This is far from the truth. The Millennial is actually one of the best informed people on the planet – about things that he or she is interested in, of course.
Almost nine out of 10 people in the Millennial generation say that getting news on a daily basis is an important part of their lives. Around seven out of 10 will actively seek out news events on a daily basis. Around nine out of ten of them will find their diversity of news events through social media, meaning that the more diverse the circle of friends, the more diverse the news presented will be.
The type of news that the Millennial generation consumes is also a mix of hard news, lifestyle news and practical news. Many Millennials actually do not know any more about computers than the older person; they just know exactly where to look in order to find the answer to a tech problem quickly. In fact, the social networks that the Millennial generation goes to actually exposes them to more news than the average network TV viewer – 65% more by some accounts.
