The March ABC figures will make grim reading for owners but also advertisers and media buyers who track these things.

The big question....

'Where is the audience going to get information and how can I ensure I get my message across to them?'

The answer is online - through social media sites, social networks and tools.

I have contributed to those ABC figures. Until a couple of years ago I got two dailies, a couple on Sunday and watched the evening news most nights. I then started to get information via the BBC and Google news alerts on the internet. I stopped having the papers delivered and only occasionally bought them when commuting to a meeting by train or flying. I stopped watching the news every evening and reduced to a single Sunday newspaper.

Today I regularly read a number of blogs and through them get access to news stories I do not always pick-up myself. I use Google Alerts and other online news services to keep informed. I still often, but not always, get a Sunday newspaper as much for the exercise of walking (and carrying it back with all the inserts and supplements - almost as good as going to the gym!) I usually only read a couple of sections and so feel a bit guilty about so much being re-cycled without even being read. I am not an eco-warrior but I have thought about the environmental cost of printing and physically distributing newsprint especially when I fail to read big sections. But on the other hand using a PC to access the internet costs too. It then becomes a highly complex argument to see what is environmentally kinder. I cannot even factor in having the pleasure of Sunday breakfast in bed and reading the newspaper as I have wireless broadband so I can have my breakfast online too. 

There must be many other people out there like me. The challenge for advertisers and their agencies is how to engage me online as that is where I spend a lot of my time and take a lot of my content.