News is an important facet of radio programming, but it is not the source of first choice for most Americans. 54% of Americans have a daily local broadcast TV news habit, and more than three out of four go there for news, if not every day, then several times a week. The total with a weekly habit is 77%. Only 6% say they never ever watch local TV news. The information is from a new HarrisInteractive poll. Radio news is a daily experience for 32%, with 54% going there several times a week. Talk radio, at 22%/37%, is another rung down the news media ladder. The poll combined broadcast and cable national networks, with 49% going there daily and 71% going daily or several times weekly. Other categories are newspaper (41%/63%), online (40%/60%), national newspaper (10%/18%) and satellite radio (12%/19%). Only about one in ten completely avoid network, newspaper and online year round; two in ten avoid radio news, a third avoid talk radio, and four in ten avoid the national papers. Not surprisingly, with it's as-yet limited subscribership, satellite radio was never used by almost seven in ten. Although in general, the older the form of media, the older the age group using it, there are a few surprises in HarrisInteractive's demo chart. Even the 59-and-older crowd was more likely to go online for news than what HarrisInteractive calls Echo Boomers - - however, that seems to be partly a results of the younger group's distate for news in general.

Media use by age
(% using daily or several times weekly)

	Echo Boomers	Gen X	Baby Boomers	Matures
	(18-27)	(28-39)	(40-58)	(59-+)
Local broadcast news	52%	69%	83%	88%
Natl bcst/CATV nets	51%	57%	74%	88%
Local newspaper	43%	49%	66%	80%
Online	53%	68%	70%	57%
Radio news	26%	49%	64%	58%
Talk radio	24%	35%	40%	41%
Natl newspaper	15%	23%	19%	17%
Satellite radio	21%	23%	19%	16%

Source: HarrisInteractive