People around the world will increase their mobile Internet usage by nearly 28 percent this year, according to a June report by London-based media services network ZenithOptimedia.
Nearly an hour-and-a-half will now be devoted by people globally per day — an average of 86 minutes — to mobile Internet, according to Zenith’s report, which is titled “Media Consumption Forecasts,” a surge that will account for an overall global media consumption increase of 1.4 percent.
Nearly three-quarters — 71 percent — of all Internet media consumption is now mobile, according to the report. Accounting for much of these gains is Asia Pacific and North America, where mobile use now constitutes, respectively, 73 percent and 72 percent of all Internet media consumption.
Zenith’s forecast also suggests that mobile’s gains are coming at a cost to other media formats. Desktop Internet use, which continued to grow globally until 2014, is now experiencing a worldwide decline, and is expected to fall 15.8 percent in 2016 to comprise an average daily use time of only 36 minutes.
Use of all other forms of media are similarly expected to dip, according to the report. Movie theater use is expected for shrink by .5 percent this year. Television, still the most widely used media format — accounting for 41 percent of all global media consumption in 2015 — will decline 1.5 percent in 2016. Radio will fall 2.4 percent, and print media is expected to plummet, with newspapers tumbling by 5.6 percent and magazines experiencing a debilitating drop of 6.7 percent. Taken together, all non-mobile forms of media use are expected to decline by 3.4 percent this year.
Zenith’s forecast comes on the heels of a recent report by digital market research company eMarketer that yielded similar findings. eMarketer’s June “US Time Spent with Media” report also suggested that mobile has been responsible for driving total daily media consumption, and found that U.S. adults now spend an average of about three hours and six minutes each day consuming media via mobile devices, revealing that daily use time with this medium has more than doubled since 2012.
Like the Zenith report, eMarketer’s analysis suggests that gains in digital media — particularly, mobile — have come at the expense of its analogue counterparts, resulting in losses to broadcast and print consumption. However, the eMarketer report also suggests that daily consumption of digital media would see slower gains in the coming years, as Americans may be nearing a total media saturation point.
ZenithOptimedia’s annual forecast, which surveys global patterns of media consumption, included data from 71 countries. Details on the report’s key findings can be found here.
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
Michael Kaminer, who was responsible for the Observer’s “Power List” for the past 13 years, has cut ties with the publication... The New York Times Company continues the march toward its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is providing more than $6 million in funding to eight organizations working to address the challenges local news and information environments face along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Conservative outlets Fox News, Newsmax and the Daily Caller are holding back from signing Pete Hegseth’s edict restricting press access in the Pentagon... CBS News sees the first executive departure of the Bari Weiss era as head of standards and practices Claudia Milne exits... Indiana University shuts down the print version of The Indiana Daily Student.
Rothschild family plans to unload 26.7 percent stake in The Economist... STAT, a digital media company that focuses the life sciences, brings back Damian Garde, who anchored its biotech newsletter and podcast from 2016 to 2024... High Times officially resumes print publication (following its 2024 shutdown) with the release of a limited-edition, collectible 50th anniversary issue. 
CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her site for $155M... C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence... A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low.
