The proportion of people who access news via print media has remained unchanged on 40pc, a report has found.
Research by the media watchdog Ofcom found that a similar percentage of the population obtain news from newspapers as from the web and mobile apps.
While some 4pc of people say they now access news on websites and apps – up from 32pc in 2013 – 40pc say they read newspapers to follow the news, a figure which is unchanged year on year.
The figures are contained in Ofcom’s News Consumption in the UK report which is published annually.
Despite a slight drop, TV remains the most popular way to consume news with 75pc of people tuning in during 2014, compared to 78pc in 2013.
Radio is seen by 36pc as a way of catching up on the news – up from 35pc from a year ago.
The report shows 16-24-year-olds are driving the increase in consuming news via the internet or apps.
Some 45pc of people in that age bracket said that websites or apps were their most important sources for news, up by half from 50pc in 2013.
The amount of news watched on TV also varies with age, with the over-55s watching an average of 196 hours of TV news each year, compared to 27 hours for 16-24 year olds.
And those aged over 55 are nearly twice as younger viewers likely to name a TV channel as their most important source of news – 65pc compared to 36pc in the 16-to-24s age range.
By contrast, younger people are ten times more likely than those aged 55 and over to access news on a mobile – 40pc compared to 4pc.
However despite younger people having easier access to news on apps and the web, one in 10 people aged 16-24 say they don’t follow the news at all compared to an average of 5pc across all adults.
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Well I am not sure where Ofcom is getting that data from, The Brighton Argus is losing 20% year after year. Obviously price increases don’t help, you can only pay so much for yesterday’s news, let’s see what August’s ABC figures show, if another 20% down that might as well shut up shop.
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Hmm – surely a bit of analysis, HTFP? This means what, from your point of view? Nothing? Anything? Just asking, is all
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“Some 45pc of people in that age bracket said that websites or apps were their most important sources for news, up by half from 50pc in 2013.”
I failed my MOCK maths GCE so I may have an excuse for not being able to make any sense of that statement.
And then there’s this one:
“And those aged over 55 are nearly twice as younger viewers likely to name a TV channel…”
Surely you could afford to spread the subbing workload by taking at least one of the hundreds of redundant subs off the dole queue?
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Sadly these findings are at best inaccurate. I know very few people that pay for a newspaper these days.
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Is this really a site for journalists? Every day it seems it has been taken over by merchants of doom.
Deft – you know very few people who pay for a newspaper these days? Really? There are loads of daily and weekly papers doing very nicely thank you. And Pj, not all dailies are suffering. Some of them, despite hefty price increases, are still shifting plenty of copies every day.
Let’s get some reality here. As much as everyone likes to say our industry is dying, many, many people still can’t do without their daily or weekly fix of local news. Long may that continue (and I’m afraid I don’t agree with those people who say there won’t be an appetite for newspapers in five/ten/15 years – a few years ago I was told my industry was dead in the water and that I should think about retraining for a new job, but I’m still going strong….)
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“While some 4pc of people say they now access news on websites and apps – up from 32pc in 2013 – 40pc say they read newspapers to follow the news, which is unchanged year on year, according to”
Eh?
“And those aged over 55 are nearly twice as younger viewers likely to name a TV channel as their most important source of news – 65pc compared to 36pc in the 16-to-24s age range.”
Again, eh?
I have to echo an earlier post: there are lots of great subs and reporters out there who’ve been dumped by the ailing newspaper industry. Perhaps you should have some of them on your staff instead of whoever handled this?
And sorry to another earlier poster who says the appetite for newspapers will still be there in the future: it won’t.
Older readers who do have a newspaper habit will literally die off.
There is no evidence they will be replaced by enough younger readers to make print news viable.
Revenue from websites is not about to fill the gap created by plummeting print sales any time soon, if ever.
Newsgathering costs money. Someone has to pay. If readers won’t pay (local newspaper paywalls anyone?) no amount of advertising alone is going to sustain a news website of any quality.
We’ve already seen newspaper groups sack subs and replace them with cheaper, less experienced, labour in hubs. We’ve also seen photographers axed in favour of readers’ pictures (sorry, “user generated content”) and pictures taken by reporters.
These are not the actions of an industry that knows what its doing.
Slashing the wage bill can’t go on indefinitely. What we have in local newsrooms are seriously overworked and underpaid staff who, in most cases, are turning out newspapers with lower paginations for higher prices. This is not a strategy that’s going to save print news. Making readers pay more for less? I don’t think so.
I don’t want to be all doom and gloom. I’d love print news to survive, I really would.
But if anyone’s holding off training for another career: don’t. Get your exit plan in place and wait for your redundancy cheque. I got out and retrained, as have many of my former colleagues, thanks to that cheque. I absolutely loved my years in journalism, and would have stayed if I could but less money and a commute to a hub just wasn’t viable.
That said I’m much less stressed and really enjoying two new careers. Not so much money, but that’ll go up in time: something that would not have happened in my old job.
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Dear “Really” Its the MD’s that are killing the business, a few journos and possibly one snapper to run a weekly newspaper or even a daily, they turn out general rubbish because of the horrendous work load.If you really think people are going to pay top dollar for yesterdays press releases with crap pictures taken by journalists you are bonkers, they are all running on a shoestring and everyone should be looking at taking another career path very soon before they are shown the door.
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I am alive and well, but so far have nothing to criticise this week.
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