More Adults Now Sourcing News Online Than On TV
The drift from legacy forms of news distribution continues, according to the latest figures out of the UK.
UK regulator Ofcom says 96% of UK adults watch, listen or read news in some form, while figures released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) put the local number at 95%.
In 2024, 71% of UK adults are consuming news via online sources, which is now on a par with television (70%).
In Australia, the two news sources most accessed were online news websites or apps, and free-to-air (FTA) television.
“Both saw declines from 58% and 59% respectively in 2022 to 53% in 2023,” ACMA reported.
“For our main news source, although older Australians were more likely to use FTA TV, those aged over 45 are shifting from FTA TV towards online news websites and apps.
“The decline from FTA TV as the main source of news is most pronounced in the 45-54-year age group (27%, down from 34% in 2022).
“While the move towards online news websites as a main news source is greatest for those aged 65–74 (25% up from 19% in 2022).”
In the UK TV news viewing, previously the single most-used platform, sank from 75% in 2023 to 70% in 2024, however these stats include all TV, not just free-to-air.
In Australia free-to-air TV “remains the most common main source of news, used by a quarter of Australian adults (26% – stable compared to 2022), followed by online news websites or apps (23%)”.
The only news source to see more adults choosing it as their main news source in 2023 was social media (20% compared to 17% in 2022).
“Younger Australians are shifting away from online news websites and towards social media websites and apps, with just 12% of 18–24-year-olds using online news websites as their main source, down from 28% in 2022,” ACMA said.
“Social media websites or apps were more likely to be the main source of news for those aged 18–24 (46%) and 25– 34 (38% up from 28% in 2022), higher than all other age groups.”
The Ofcom data showed 16-24 year olds in the UK are more likely to use the internet and social media than traditional news outlets, and that this difference has increased from 2018. Also, online news reading or viewing among those aged 55-plus has been increasing over the last six years.
UK adults now use an average of 6.9 individual news sources across all platforms. The average number for online sources has increased from 3.8 in 2023 to 4.2.
In Australia we used an average of 3.1 news sources, but the metric was “in a given week”. This was down from 3.5 in 2022.
Ofcom said that while “older adults prefer established news providers … young people don’t have a clear single preference”.
Among UK adults who directly access news publishers, websites and apps, the BBC website (59%) has the highest claimed use, followed by Sky (20%), The Guardian (20%) and The Daily Mail (19%).
“Facebook continues to be the most-used social media source (reaching 30% of UK adults), in line with 2023, while TikTok has been growing in popularity as a source of news, reaching 11% of UK adults, up from 1% in 2020,” said Ofcom.