• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, September 25, 2009

A new survey on media usage from the Opinion Research Corporation confirms what newspaper publishers have long feared: Americans are abandoning print daily newspapers for information in favor of online news.

The OPC also found a slightly smaller decrease in the number of people turning to TV news. However, there were also some unexpected gains for traditional media, including a greater reliance on radio for news and information.

OPC's survey of 1,000 adults from Sept. 10-13 assessed the proportion of their total news consumption contributed by various news outlets. The survey found that daily newspaper usage dropped 4.1% to 19.4%, while television news dropped 3.6% to 31.1% this year compared to 2008.

By contrast, online news usage increased 1.9% to 14.6%, and radio increased 2.9% to 19.4%. Weekly community newspapers fell 0.7% to 4.4%.

The increase in online news consumption was led by disproportionately larger increases among a number of key demographics, including college-educated people (20%), Hispanics (21%) and people with household incomes over $100,000 a year (23.1%). As might be expected, adults ages 18-34 also got more news from online sources, at 22.2%.