This research was conducted by the Media Insight Project — an initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

It is cold. There is snow all over the landscape in many places, and it is the gray skies of January.

So, for those whose main task for the month is to come up with strategies to make readers pay for content, here is some good news to put a bit of sunshine on your desk.

Recent research conducted by the Media Insight Project, an initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, reveals that slightly more than half of all U.S. adults subscribe to news in some form—and roughly half of those to a newspaper.

This report is based on in-depth formative interviews with news consumers in three cities and a nationally representative survey, informed by those interviews, of 2,199 American adults conducted between February 16 and March 20, 2017.

A surprise for me, and contrary to the idea that young people will not pay for news because information on the internet is free, nearly 4 in 10 adults under age 35 are paying for news.

The reason they will pay is no surprise: according to this report:

People are drawn to subscribe to news for three reasons above others—because a publication excels at coverage of key topics, because friends and family subscribe to the publication, and to a lesser degree, in response to discount promotions on subscription prices.

Of those three reasons, I bet content that is essential, timely and not found everywhere, is the driving one for people to pull out their wallets and pay for content.

Good reminder for all of us.

April 18-19, 2018-–Newscamp ,Augsburg,  Germany.

May 26, 2018 —Associacion Riograndense de Imprensa, Univesidad de Santa Cruz (Unisc), Brazil

June 3-6, 2018—The Seminar, San Antonio, Texas.