It took a study to tell us!: “Newspapers That Attract Teens Retain Them as Adults.”

Philip Meyer already showed us how that trend works.

… the idea is that newspapers should have content aimed at teenagers. The foundation estimates that only 220 newspapers across the country have special teen sections, many written by teenagers. The study also noted that roughly 800 papers carry some sort of syndicated youth content for all ages.

I might have endorsed that idea of special teen sections 15 years ago. Now, where newspapers need to be concentrating their resources on growing young audiences is on the Web.

There are two reasons: That’s the media teens are adapting to, and most teens are the children of parents who never acquired the newspaper habit, which makes them much tougher to reach.

The Web opens a world of inexpensive opportunities to grow audience with a variety of products, some of which could appeal to teens very much.