Speaking at the Tractor and Machinery Association conference, Australian Community Media agricultural research manager Karen Rogers challenged assumptions about where farmers got information.
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"Farmers have different lifestyles," she said.
"They are up early, they work late and they aren't doing a commute and they are working outdoors. Their lifestyle, age and connectivity are different to those in metropolitan areas and even those working in a regional town. A farmers' routine is governed by the weather, the season and what they need to do on the property on that particular day. This has a real influence on their media habits."
Ms Rogers said ACM annually surveyed 800 farmers, targeting large broadacre farms with sheep, beef and cropping enterprises.
"Nearly all farmers use the internet, nearly all watch television and nearly all use radio. 47 per cent are watching the ABC news and the rest of the viewing is fragmented. Radio is similar - 53pc of listening time is to ABC, and at harvest radio listening goes up," she said.
Ms Rogers said farmers bucked the trend when it came to print readership, with ACM Agricultural Publishing mastheads still having a consistent readership amongst farmers.
"The information contained helps them to make business decisions, which means when they come into town they purchase the paper and spend the week reading it," she said.
"Print reach is consistently above 80pc to farmers. Circulation decline is coming from peripheral readers, those people involved in agricultural industry who can jump on the internet easily, maybe working in town. Our core readership of big broadacre farming businesses are still reading print. The top three uses for internet was email, weather and agricultural news."
