While digital publishing draws a lot of attention nowadays, it accounts for only about 11 percent of revenues in the USA.

It should not be overlooked that 25 percent of the potential audience in Europe, 20 percent in the USA and 20 percent in Japan do not use the Internet.

Print must not be abandoned and certainly not as quickly as some newspapers did it, Kilman stresses. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”

The survey shows that newspapers attract high audience figures on their websites, but they do not engage them.

“To engage the audience is the biggest challenge in the newspaper arena,” Kilman says.

It is interesting to note, however, that the usage of the websites varies greatly in different countries as regards numbers of visits, reading time, etc. Why that is so needs to be researched in greater detail, he says. “We need to get a better understanding of how people consume news in the digital age.”

One clear trend is that tablets are becoming the medium of choice in news consumption. But “print and online are complementary,” he says.

More information about World Press Trends is available here.