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                <h3 class="byline">By Michael Hickins</h3><p>Nearly half of all Americans get their local news on a mobile device, though few are paying to read their local news on the go, according to a new study by Pew Research Center’s Internet &amp; American Life Project released Monday. Lee Rainie, director of the center, told Digits the relatively high number of mobile news consumers “was a surprise to me.”</p>
<p>Moreover, 10% said they had paid for mobile apps that contain local news, which equates to 1% of the overall U.S. population.  Rainie said that given the relative novelty of tablets in particular and apps in general, 1% “isn’t a trivial number at all.”</p>
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<dl class="wp-caption alignleft caption-alignleft"><dt class="wp-caption-dt"><img src="http://online.wsj.com/media/mobdevices_D_20110314165516.jpg" width="262" height="174" class="size-full wp-image-5" alt="image" /></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd wp-cite-dd">Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg News</dd>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd">A customer browsing mobile handsets.</dd>
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<p>According to the study, 84% of Americans own a cellphone or tablet, and fully 47% get their local news on such mobile devices. </p>
<p>As expected, the trend is being driven by younger people; 70% of 18-29 year-olds, and 63% of 30-49 year-olds get local news on their mobile devices, compared with just 8% for people 65 and older. It is also driven by wealthier and more educated people.</p>
<p>The report contains several other nuggets that could be construed as positive signs for news organizations: adults who consume news on mobile devices are more likely than other adults to say they would be willing to pay a fee — although their appetites vary by price.  Mobile news consumers are almost twice as likely as other adults to say they would pay a $5 monthly fee for access to their local newspaper online (30% vs. 17%), but there is less enthusiasm among mobile news consumers and local app users when the proposed fee is $10 per month.</p>
<p>The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted from Jan. 12 to 25, 2011, among a sample of 2,251 adults, age 18 and older, and has a margin of error of 2.3%.</p>
      
            </div></div><p><strong>Read more:</strong> <a class="rssreadon" rel="external" title="Local News Getting Mobile" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/03/15/local-news-getting-mobile/?mod=WSJBlog" target="_blank">http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/03/15/local-news-getting-mobile/?mod=WSJBlog</a></p>