Where millennials spend money for online media content

While millennials spend most of their budget for online media content on movies, television and music, a majority of them spare some amount for paid news content too, new research has found.

A majority of millennials in the US regularly got paid news content in the last year, whether paid for by themselves or someone else, the findings showed.

The research was conducted by the Media Insight Project, a collaboration between the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

"This study makes it clear that, contrary to popular belief, Mmillennials pay for content online," said Trevor Tompson, director of The AP-NORC Centre.

The survey, conducted between January-February this year, reached 1,045 US adults between the ages of 18 and 34.

The researchers found that 40 percent of millennials personally paid for news.

"One big factor in whether people pay for news is their attitude about whether news helps their lives," Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute, noted.

The study found few socio-economic differences between those who pay for news and those who do not.

"But there is also a challenge here. Some cohorts of millennials believe that because news is important for democracy, it should be free, almost like a right. And we do not know whether that view will change as these younger adults age. That is going to be a hurdle for news publishers," Rosenstiel pointed out in a statement released by NORC at the University of Chicago on Wednesday.

Facebook and search engines are still the most common sources for obtaining news, even among those millennials who pay for news from other sources, the findings showed.

The survey showed that 87 percent of millennials pay for some types of content, and the most popular services are movies and television and music.