The competition between new media and traditional media

It is a topic that never grows old. Many research focuses on the influence of new media on traditional media, such as “Will television replace radio”, “Will DVD kill movies.” Nowadays, we are concerned about information surplus. Will the Internet replace traditional media? It is interesting to think about this topic in an economic perspective.  

Audience’s attention and time are limited. New media and traditional media compete for limited attention.  My question is that does new media compete for limited attention or does it increase audience’s demand?

If new media and traditional media are substitute goods, then when a reader reads print newspaper, he or she would not read online newspaper. What if new media and traditional media are complement goods, new media will increase the old media consumption or vise versa. 

The other assumption is new media increase media consumption. New media serve a different function with traditional media. For example, before TV, people only   read newspapers.  When we have TV, people watch TV but still read newspapers because people watch TV news and read newspapers under different circumstances. Now we have online news, mobile news, people can check news whenever they want. It means people spend more time on news consumption.

When television was introduced, there was a concerned that radio may be replaced. Radio is not a main media in a household, TV replace it. However, the fact is radio became an important media when people driving.

In my opinion, traditional media would never die. It will find its own way to get along with new media, as it usually does. New media will increase the demand of media use.