Newspapers' Digital Audience At Record High

Newspapers continue to make big strides online, with the combined digital audience for U.S. newspapers reaching a record 173 million in January 2015, according to comScore data cited by the Newspaper Association of America.  That figure is the highest ever, according to Eric Sass at MediaPost.com,  up 19% from 146 million in January 2014, and 4.8% from 165 million in December 2014.

The latest figure represents 82% of the total U.S. adult online population in January 2015. Furthermore, newspapers’ digital content reached 91% of U.S. adult women ages 25-34, and the same proportion of U.S. adult men ages 35-44.

The comScore data revealed a big increase in the proportion of Americans who consume digital newspaper content exclusively on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, rather than desktops and laptops. The number of mobile-only consumers jumped 73% from 39.3 million adult unique visitors in January 2014 to over 68 million in January 2015, representing a proportional increase from 27% to 39% of the total newspaper digital audience.

Within the mobile-only group, the fastest growth in proportional terms came among young women ages 18-24, as this subset soared 155% from 3.2 million to 8.2 million over this period. Not far behind were men ages 34-44, with the number of mobile users in this demo up 122%.

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