The UK has reached a generational tipping point in news consumption, with online overtaking traditional TV for the first time. Research from Ofcom.
While there is some gap between the two, those who said they consume news online in some capacity reached 71% this year, compared to more than one percent who said they consume news via TV.
According to the regulator’s latest News consumption in the UK Tracker, growing use of social media for news, not just youth, is the driving force.
More than half of UK adults (52%) now use platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and to access Instagram news, increasing from 47% in 2023. The reach of TV news has declined by exactly the same amount over this period, falling from 75% to 70%.
Look at the timeline
Going online was established as by far the most popular way for young people to access news (88% of 16-24 year olds), but older generations are also gradually adding online sources to their news diet, according to research. More than half (54%) of 55+ year olds said they find news online – up from 45% in 2018 – most navigating directly to news websites.
Among 16-24 year olds, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, X and TikTok occupied the top five slots in terms of news consumption.
BBC According to the research, one remains the most common source of news, with 43% of people saying they tune in to the country’s flagship channel, but Facebook came in second with ITV at 30%, ahead of BBC iPlayer (23%). was placed . IPlayer is followed by YouTube (19%), Sky News (19%) and BBC News Channel (18%). In a major blow, Channel 4 News dropped out of the top 10 entirely.
Yeh-Chong Teh, Ofcom Group Director, Strategy and Research, said: “Television has dominated people’s news habits since the Sixties, and it is still highly trusted. But we’re seeing a generational shift to online news, which is often seen as less reliable – along with growing fears about misinformation and deepfake content.”
In Ofcom research about the recent general election, published alongside NewsTracker, more than a quarter (27%) claimed they had seen a deepfake in the past week and almost half (46%) were unsure whether they had. A majority (60%) claimed they had received general election-related information that they felt might be false or misleading at least once in the previous week.
Notably, the research found that the biggest increase in interest was from 18-24 year olds during the period leading up to the July 4 general election. On the other side of the coin, adults over the age of 50 were more likely than normal to quit during the same period.
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