Media shifting not just for the young

Merrill Brown and Carnegie Corporation's new report "Abandoning the News," about how 18-34 year olds are moving away from traditional sources of news, is getting some attention in digital media circles. Looking at my own news and entertainment media preferences (and, admittedly, as someone about a dozen years removed from the high end of the report's target demographic), I think the report could go even further.

I've replaced watching live, unfiltered broadcast and cable television with TiVo -- two TiVos, actually. I have a hard time imaging not being able to pause live TV, rewind to catch something I want to see again, or see a menu of shows, based on my preferences, ready to be viewed whenever I want. If there is a significant news story, I can replay a live feed. It is almost painful to watch raw TV in hotel rooms when I travel.

I've replaced broadcast radio with XM Satellite Radio. I was initially spurred to subscribe to XM by the awful, irritating commercials on the local classical radio station (as XM has three commercial-free classical channels). That alone was worth the $10/month subscription. But I also have access to over 150 other channels, including BBC World News, XM Public Radio (including Bob Edwards, PRI and APM shows), and audio feeds from C-SPAN, Fox, CNN and others. Better still, my XM model -- the Delphi MyFi -- is fully portable and can store five hours of programming on a hard disk (complete with song titles and artists, as it's a digital feed), so I can take music and news with me on a plane.

I've replaced print newspapers with Internet feeds. I scan several news sources on the Web daily. I get my immediate news from Google News and have the ability to search for specific stories on the Wall Street Journal Online and get some personality or summaries on blogs. While I still enjoy the tactile sensation of newspapers (except for the ink) and still subscribe to two of them -- one local, one national -- because they're easier to read on the couch, that technological advantage may not survive another decade.

Do I do all these things because I'm a rebel or a nerd? Not really. I do them because they are convenient, because I have limited time to "consume" news and want to focus on what I want to know, when I want to know it. I don't want to have to wait, or wade.

"Abandoning the News" is only the start of the story. Morphing news (and entertainment) delivery is the rest of the story, for all demographics.