So who really does buy and read newspapers?-we need to know

After this weeks earlier revelations that journalism students at UCLAN don't read newspapers,although sources tell me not to read too much into that headline,

I put out a call to see if anyone had done any empirical research into our newspaper habits in the UK.

Nobody has yet got back to me but I picked up this study from the US courtesy of Paul Wiggins on a recent publication in the US.

Two researchers traveled 31,000 miles and visited 50 states to find who really needs newspapers.

And what they found was despite the fact that online news consumption has mushroomed, with no signs of diminishing,the hard-copy newspaper is far from yesterday’s news.

"we did not encounter dying newspapers ensconced in hospice.” said one of the study's authors,Paul Steinle, a former United Press International president and broadcast journalist.,

Now with all the diminishing pot of funding in this country being poured into data journalism and digital story telling,perhaps a small pot could be found to help understand in the UK exactly what their audience is and what their audience wants.

It might help the industry a bit more

Any takers?

No rebirth of a News of the World?

Since the unfortunate demise of the News of the World earlier this summer,there has been much speculation over whether there will be room for a new Snday to launch.

Media guru Roy Greenslade ruminates over the issue in his latest blog on the Guardian media site writing that in a few short months the gap has closed with many NOTW readers moving to the Mirror or the Star but more importantly that many people took the paper as a second option along with titles such as the Sunday Times or the Mail on Sunday.

So the gap is maybe no longer there? As Greenslade says

It would be counter-productive to produce an NoW lookalike. In this immediate post-hacking climate, that journalistic model - based on intrusive content and employing the dark arts to achieve it - cannot hope to prosper.
Then again, a paper based around PR-generated, non-intrusive celebrity content is surely a non-starter. A weekly newsprint celebrity vehicle cannot compete with the glossy magazines, such as Hello! and OK!

But maybe the point is that the newspaper market is dying,especially it seems on a Sunday.

Media historians may look back at this summer's events and decide that the NOTW closure was the final nail in the coffin for the Sunday newspaper market