MORE BLOG RESEARCH….Gallup did a poll recently that concluded that blogs are “not yet in the media big leagues.” That’s probably true, and in fact blog triumphalism is sort of a pet peeve of mine. Still, I think Gallup missed the real story. Here are the numbers:
Fewer than one in six Americans (15%) read blogs regularly (at least a few times a month). Just 12% of Americans read blogs dealing specifically with politics this often.
12%? Out of 200 million adults that’s 24 million people. That’s a helluva lot for a medium that really got its start only three years ago.
But if you read on the news is even better. Here’s the age breakdown:
% Who
Use Internet% of Internet Users
Who Read BlogsTotal %
Who Read BlogsAge 18-29
91%
44%
40%
Age 30-49
88%
37%
33%
Age 50-64
75%
34%
26%
Age 65+
33%
28%
9%
It turns out the total numbers were dragged way down by the number of senior citizens who don’t read blogs ? hardly a surprising result. But among people ages 18-64, over a quarter read blogs. Among twenty-somethings, the number is 40%.
Now, only about half of these people read blogs daily or weekly, but still. If 30 or 40 million Americans read blogs even occasionally, that seems like an awful lot of people to me. How long was MTV on the air before it had that many occasional viewers?
Additional factoid: 24% of liberals say they read blogs at least monthly, compared with 15% of conservatives and 12% of moderates. I’m not quite sure what that means, but it’s not what I would have expected.
