Online, led by social media, overtakes TV as the most popular source of news in the UK, Ofcom says
Online platforms have now overtaken TV for the first time as the most popular resource for news among adult consumers, at 71% versus 70%, according to new research.
The newspaper business has been in the middle of a long and slow decline thanks to the rise of the internet. Now some new research out of the U.K. lays bare how TV news is facing a similar fate.
Online platforms have now overtaken TV for the first time as the most popular resource for news among adult consumers, at 71% versus 70%, according to new research from U.K. communications regulator Ofcom.
This is a significant shift. Not only has TV dominated news for more than 60 years (a period when it overtook newspapers in popularity for news; that was the first blow for broadsheets), but also as online platforms replace broadcasters (and newspapers), the news they carry comes from a much wider set of sources. That’s both a blessing for having more viewpoints and a curse for being significantly harder to vet for accuracy — and consumers are concerned that this will only get worse with the growth of AI.
Ofcom’s larger conclusions may not be a surprise: Newspapers have been in trouble for decades; TV has faced pressure from streaming and online media in other categories like entertainment for years; and AI has a lot to answer for in areas like deepfakes and misinformation. But the research is significant because it gives statistics to how usage is shifting, and Ofcom said it will use the conclusions to help determine what to focus its regulation on in the years ahead.
“Television has dominated people’s news habits since the ’60s, and it still commands really high trust,” said Yih-Choung Teh, Ofcom’s group director for strategy and research, in a statement. “But we’re witnessing a generational shift to online news, which is often seen as less reliable — together with growing fears about misinformation and deepfake content. Ofcom wants to secure high-quality news for the next generation, so we’re kicking off a review of the public service media that help underpin the U.K.’s democracy and public debate.”
Ofcom has been running annual surveys on news consumption since 2017. This year it canvassed over 5,000 adults both online and face-to-face.
Face the news
Even as online news as a broader category continues to have a disruptive force in the media market, getting online if you’re a publisher is not exactly a panacea. Online news outlets are also seeing their audiences get eroded by newer kids on the block: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and X/Twitter all make the list of top 10 news sources in the survey.
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