The Waterkooler

The daily audience online for news has grown dramatically since 2002 - a surge that has been fueled by the rise in home broadband connections. Some 50 million Americans now seek out news on the internet on a typical day.

In a survey in December 2005, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that a major segment of broadband users now say the internet is their primary news source, surpassing even television and newspapers as their source of choice. Some 71% of these high-powered online news consumers go online for news on the average day, while 59% get news from local TV. Just more than half get news from national TV and radio on the typical day and about 40% turn to local papers.

Across age groups, the impact of online news is greatest for American adults under the age of 36 who have a high-speed internet connection at home. For this group, the internet is now on par with local TV and newspaper as a daily source for news, and surpasses national TV, radio, and local papers as a news source. Fully 46% of this group gets news online on the typical day, compared with 51% who turn to local TV, 41% who turn to radio, and 40% to national TV news.