News consumption in the UK: research report 25 September 2013 Note: This report was reissued on 10 July 2017. It corrects a previous misallocation of Channel 5's wholesale and retail news.
Introduction This summary slide pack provides the findings of Ofcom’s 2013 research into news consumption across television, radio, print and online. It is published as part of our market research range of publications that examine the consumption of content, and attitudes towards that content, across different platforms. The aim of this slide pack is to inform an understanding of news consumption across the UK, and within each UK nation. The slide pack details various findings relating to the consumption of news; the sources and platforms used, the perceived importance of different platforms and outlets for news, attitudes to individual news sources and an overview of local media consumption. It also provides details of our cross-platform news consumption metric – ‘share of references’. An accompanying summary report which highlights the key findings is available on the Ofcom website. This report uses a variety of data sources. The primary source is a news survey commissioned by Ofcom and conducted by Kantar Media in April 2013, comprising an omnibus survey of 2,862 people across the UK, including boosts of 350 in each devolved nation. This is the default source unless otherwise specified. Other sources used include: • an omnibus survey of 2016 people across the UK, commissioned by Ofcom and conducted by Ipsos Mori, about local media; • metrics on television viewing from the industry currency BARB; • newspaper readership figures from the National Readership Survey; and • online consumption metrics from UKOM/comScore Note: Data for news consumption on platforms cannot be compared with those collected from the similar ad-hoc study on news from 2012. For the ad-hoc study conducted in 2012, before being asked for their news consumption habits, people were asked a series of introductory questions relating to topics they consider to be news, are interested in, and consider important for society to know about; hence they were primed into thinking about a wider range of topics within the definition of news e.g. sport, celebrity gossip, etc. In the 2013 omnibus survey, they were asked about their news consumption habits straight away. This resulted in lower responses for news platforms and sources compared to 2012.
News consumption in the UK: contents Section Page Cross platform news consumption 4 Use of multiple sources across platforms 10 Share of references 19 News consumption on television 24 News consumption on radio 31 Use of newspapers as a source of news 35 News consumption via the internet 47 Local media consumption 52 News consumption in the nations 59 3
Cross-platform news consumption
Figure 1 Platform used for news nowadays Television is by far the most-used platform for news consumption with 78% of all adults using it for this purpose, followed by newspapers (40%) and radio (35%). A quarter (26%) of those with smartphones use internet or apps via their mobile phone for news. Television 78% Newspapers 40% Radio 35% Internet or apps on computer 25% 26% among Internet or apps on a mobile 14% those with a Word of mouth 11% smartphone Magazines 6% The average number of Interactive TV, Ceefax, TV apps 4% platforms used nowadays for news is 2.1 None of these / Don’t follow news 7% Q3a) Which of the following do you use for news nowadays? Base: All adults 16+ (2862) 5
Figure 2 Top 20 news sources – reach among all adults The top three news sources in terms of reach among UK adults are all TV channels, with BBC One being by far the most used (57%). The average number of sources used is 3.7 BBC One 57% 33% ITV1/ITV WALES/UTV/STV BBC News Channel 17% BBC website or app 16% Sky News Channel 16% 10% The Sun 8% BBC Radio 2 The Daily Mail 8% Channel 4 8% TV Channel BBC Radio 4 8% BBC Radio 1 6% Newspaper 6% Facebook 5% The Sun on Sunday Radio Station The Daily Mirror 5% Any local daily paper 5% Google (Search engine) 5% Website / app BBC Two 5% 5% The Mail on Sunday 5% The Metro Sky News website or app 4% 4% Google news Q5a-f) Thinking specifically about <Source> which of the following do you use for news nowadays? Base: All adults 16+ (2862)
Figure 3 Penetration of four main news platforms used nowadays 9 out of 10 adults (90%) use any of the four main platforms for news. The figure is higher among over 55s (98%) than 16-24s (82%). All platforms are also higher among the AB socio-economic group, and this group also use more platforms in general than DEs. The internet shows a large differentiation for both age and social grade. 16-24 55+ Column1 AB DE % use any of the 4 platforms 82% 98% 92% 90% Use 1 platform only 34% 30% 22% 38% Use 3-4 platforms 22% 27% 43% 27% 90% 82% 77% 58% 52% 50% 49% 48% 44% 38% 36% 34% 27% 25% 19% 15% Television Newspapers Radio Internet (any device) All adults 15+ 78% 40% 35% 32% Q3a) Which of the following do you use for news nowadays? Base: All adults 16+ (2862)
Figure 4 Combinations of four main platforms used nowadays for news Out of all the possible platform combinations used for news, just over one in five (22%) use only TV for news. One in four (26%) of those aged 55+ and three in ten of those in the DE socio- economic group use only TV for news, compared to one in ten (10%) of ABs. TV 22% TV + Newspapers 14% TV + Newspapers + Radio 10% TV + Radio 8% TV + Internet 7% TV + Radio + Newspapers + Internet 6% Proportion of each demographic TV + Radio + Internet 6% that use TV only and internet only Internet 5% TV only Internet TV + Internet + Newspapers 4% only Newspapers 3% Radio 2% 16-24 16% 12% Internet + Newspapers 1% 55+ 26% 1% Internet + Radio 1% Radio + Newspapers 1% AB 10% 4% Internet + Radio + Newspapers 0% None of the above 10% DE 30% 5% Q3a) Which of the following do you use for news nowadays? Base: All adults 16+ (2862)
Figure 5 Make-up of news consumption by platform Out of all the possible platform combinations used for news, TV and no other platform is the most popular at 22%, followed by a combination of TV and newspapers (14%). Six per cent of respondents used all four platforms. 22% Television 2% Radio 78% 8% 35% 1% 7% 10% 6% 5% 3% 6% 14% 1% - 4% Newspapers Internet 40% 32% 1% None of the above = 10% Q3a) Which of the following do you use for news nowadays? Base: All adults 16+ (2862)
Use of multiple sources across platforms
Figure 6 Number of sources used on each platform Almost two-thirds (64%) of radio news listeners use just one source. The figures are less pronounced on other platforms; less than half of online news users (45%) and TV news users (43%) use only one source, and three in ten (29%) of newspaper readers. The number of sources used across platforms, proportion of respondents(%) Number of TV Radio Newspapers Internet/apps All platforms sources used 1 43% 64% 29% 45% 21% 2 34% 20% 44% 21% 18% 3 13% 7% 14% 14% 17% 4 5% 2% 6% 7% 13% 5 2% 1% 2% 3% 9% 6 1% - 1% 1% 6% 7+ - - - - 12% Mean number of 1.9 1.4 2.1 1.9 3.7 sources used Base: All who use each platform for news :TV =2290, radio =1000, newspapers =1252, internet =857, all platforms =2661. Note: For individual platforms the mean number of sources is among those who use just that particular platform for news. For all platforms (aggregated) the mean number of sources is shown among those who used any of the four platforms for news and aggregated across all of them so is therefore a wider base .The calculation is made by summing the number of sources each respondent said for each platform, and then dividing by the number of people who use any of them.
Figure 7 Distribution of multi-sourcing Close to four in five (78%) news consumers use three or fewer news providers. WHOLESALE 1% 1% 100% 2% 6% 78% use 3 or fewer 12% 80% 55% use 1 or 2 providers 23% 60% 22% use 4 or more providers 40% 26% 20% 27% 0% 1 provider 2 providers 3 providers 4 providers 5 providers 6 providers 7 providers 8+ providers Base: All who use a news source nowadays (2628) Note: Wholesale is classified as the company that provides the news for the given source. Retail is classified as the owner of the branded title/service through which the news is provided (except the three generic categories ‘commercial radio’, ‘aggregators’ and ‘social media’).
Figure 8 Sole use of news providers (used nowadays) 78% of news consumers use three or fewer providers 27% use one provider only 12% only use Proportion of each demographic that use only BBC One as a news source 8% only use 16-24 55+ AB DE 7% 10% 5% 10% (Q5ai-Q5ei) Thinking specifically about <SOURCE USED AT Q3a (1-8)> which of the following do you use for news nowadays? Base: All adults 16+ who claimed to use any news source (45795)
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