The Pew Research article “State of the News Media 2015” had some very interesting points about all media, but the audio, newspapers and cable news section really caught my eye. It showed me that people are still interested in news but how we consume news now is different than it has in the past. I always knew that the consumption of news was increasing online, but to see the various numbers and graphs that the article cited validated those thoughts.

One thing I was not surprised to see was the increase in online radio usage. Approximately 53% of users ages 12 and older are using online radio as a way to get their audio fix. Because of the deals that Pandora and Spotify give their users, people find it more appealing to pick and choose what they want to hear rather than just listening to the music or information that the radio provides them.

I was happy to see that the article touched on different demographics such as Hispanics and African-Americans. When working at my internship at Mediacom over the summer, reaching out to diverse demographics, especially Hispanic, was important in order to reach a different audience. While I was looking into the types of people who use Revlon products the most during my internship, my team and I were surprised to see that a large amount of users were Hispanic women. After discovering this, marketing toward them was crucial to developing the 2015 media plan.

Another item I was not surprised by was that the use of newspapers is rapidly declining. Due to the increase of users getting their information faster than ever on smartphones, it seems that people, especially young adults, are not seeing the point in picking up a newspaper. Why bother when you get retrieve  news instantaneously through notifications, apps and social media? Although, I was surprised to see a decline in cable news. With a decrease of eight percent in cable news, it proves that people are finding their own ways to consume news rather than the typical media conglomerates. Because people are now able to tailor their news to what they want to see, the need for local news is drowning out cable news.

When seeing that Buzzfeed had a large amount of consumers for their news, it shocked me at first but also made me think about why Buzzfeed would have a large pull of readers. Part of me believes that the general population is almost intimidated by going to actual news sites and feel like they get bogged down with information. In addition, they may not trust the big media conglomerates. By going to a site like Buzzfeed, there are fun and lighthearted games and quizzes to do, in addition to getting important information when looking through the site.