I want to apologize for my blogging absence for the past few weeks.  No excuses, just an apology.

Today I want to share some pretty significant information about who watches, listens to and reads – yes reads – the news.  The data is reported in depth in the October 8-14 issue of ADWEEK and I encourage everyone to visit the site or liberate a copy of the magazine.

I will just cover  some things I found to be not quite obvious about news consumption, as in:

• 38% of the public is getting its news from digital & social networks; with 29% from newspapers
• the youngest audiences are using The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, NY Times , WSJ, and The Economist (I would not have guessed the last two).
• The old folks are getting theirs fromThe O’Reilly Factor, Sunday news shows, network evening news, Hardball (surprise) and Hannity.
• By affiliation it’s LIBERAL – Rachel Maddow; INDEPENDENTS – The Daily show; CONSERVATIVES – Limbaugh

When thinking about all the data as a full meal of information, the menu seems to be indicating that the news cuisine is beginning to become less like “Sit Down Dining” and more  like “Food Truck Eats”.

The younger consumer is not very interested in spending a lot of time at the table and is not taking the meal very seriously.  Could this be signaling that we don’t believe what we hear/see as much as we once did or that we have just been force fed and are “stuffed”.

When “reporters” like Colbert & Stewart continue to build audience and Limbaugh and Glenn Beck continue to slide in popularity, it appears that we are starting to push ourselves away from the table.

One final thought.  With billions of dollars being spent on political advertising this year, I will really be interested in what the CPM will be for actual voters.

I’ll get back to you in November on this one!