MxMIndia

Tag: OFCOM

  • Online news consumption has surpassed TV – but broadcasters still most widely trusted

    Online news consumption has surpassed TV – but broadcasters still most widely trusted

    By Stephen Cushion

    More people in the UK now access news online than on television, according to new survey data from the media regulator, Ofcom. This is the first time Ofcom’s annual news consumption poll found online media use ahead of TV news.

    The immediate press reaction to the survey suggested television is in terminal decline, with online media replacing TV news. Ofcom itself pitted one format against another by declaring in the study’s headline: “TV loses its crown as main source for news.”

    Yet rather than the survey reflecting a “generational shift” in audience behaviour, the truth is it has been going on for decades.

    The rise of smartphones has fuelled more consumption of news directly on apps, including social media. This is part of a broader trend in how media has permeated our lives. Where once people slept more than they used media, today they spend more time – estimated at well over eight hours per day – consuming a wide of range of new and old media.

    But as opposed to greater online media consumption signalling the death of television news, the box in the corner has proved highly resilient. In 2024, Ofcom’s survey showed 70% of people said they used TV to access news, a fall of just 5% since 2019. By contrast, two-thirds of respondents used online media to access news five years ago, compared with 71% in the latest survey.

    The numbers suggest that many people have not given up on TV news, but rather have gone online in addition to watching television. The concept of “dual screening” – simultaneously watching television while tweeting views on political events or scrolling social media – has been around for years.

    In the first ever televised UK leaders’ election debate in 2010, a quarter of young people in a survey revealed they had posted election-related comments on Facebook and Twitter while watching the debate. This shows that, for some time now, watching TV or scrolling through social media platforms is not just about consuming media, but about participating in a shared conversation.

    The shift towards online news use is far greater among younger than older age groups. But suggestions that young people are collectively turning away from traditional media in favour of relying exclusively on TikTok can be misleading.

    Often, what they are consuming – even on newer platforms – is still produced and posted by traditional media.

    For example, it is estimated that half of the BBC’s young audiences accessed election coverage through social media. This could be anything from 30-second videos to longer explainers of topics in the news.

     

    Trustworthy sources at critical moments

    Ofcom’s research also shows television’s influence at critical points in time. Another survey conducted by the regulator found that television was the most popular way people consumed news and information during the 2024 UK general election.

    During the pandemic, surveys consistently showed a majority of people turned to television to understand the latest guidance. In the opening weeks of the health crisis, the BBC News at Six and Ten were together attracting 20 million viewers per week. At the same time, people questioned the credibility of online and social media sources.

    During the start of the pandemic, our research at Cardiff University examined people’s news diets. We found almost all participants trusted and valued broadcasters’ impartiality, including their online and social media coverage. Again, this tells us that people are using online formats to access the same, traditional sources of media.

    Much of the reaction to Ofcom’s recent survey has conflated a rise in online news with the public being more exposed to conspiracy theory websites, or false and misleading disinformation from social media.

    Many people have invested their trust in broadcasters’ online news services. But, in doing so, they may be more likely to encounter false or misleading information when scrolling through social media sites.

    Ofcom’s survey found that audiences ranked TV, radio and public service media generally the highest in terms of trust, accuracy and
    usefulness. This shows how important broadcast media still is, despite the shift in people accessing news online and being exposed to unregulated sources across social media platforms.

     

    Changing habits

    This is not to say that people’s engagement and trust in news is not changing. Ofcom’s election survey revealed that the oldest respondents were more likely to turn to news providers and official sources to help them make decisions about where to cast their vote. On the other hand, 18- to 24-year-olds relied more on the opinions of those around them.

    Such disparity hints at different generational perceptions of authority. This was also the case for Reform and Green Party voters, suggesting that the more ideologically distant respondents were from the mainstream political consensus – from either a right- or left-wing perspective – the more they distrusted traditional media.Moving forward, Ofcom has promised to review public service broadcasters’ news output, particularly what they produce and share online.

    This review appears to be more focused on audience perceptions than the nature of journalism produced. But without interpreting the editorial value of news, it will prove difficult to make judgments about how public service broadcasters inform people’s understanding of the world online.

    In my view, we need more research examining the editorial content of public service media – to assess what kind of information and analysis they are producing for audiences across social media platforms and online news sites.The Conversation

     

    Stephen Cushion is Chair Professor, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • In Column #1: The absence of Indian papers at a Heathrow lounge & what irks him about NDTV in UK

    Peter Mukerjea. Why no Indian papers in the lounge?

     

    ‘Read your comment to Anil Thakraney’s blog’, a friend smsed me a few weeks ago. I said I hadn’t, only to discover that the ‘PM’ on the messageboard was none other than Peter Mukerjea. One of the brightest stars in the media, Peter may have had a setback with 9X and INX Media, but there is no denying that the former Star India CEO has been one of the finest minds and much admired captains of Indian broadcasting. He may be in distant England, but he’s still clued in to what’s happening back home.

    I wrote to ‘PM’, thanking him for dropping by and invited him to write for us. He agreed… so here we are.

    MxMIndia is proud to present Media Mullings, a new fortnightly column by Peter Mukerjea.

    As you’ll figure as you read along, he’s also a brilliant writer.

    – Pradyuman Maheshwari

     

    Media Mullings: No desi papers in this lounge!

     

    By Peter Mukerjea

     

    I’m sitting in the Emirates lounge at Heathrow airport about to board a flight to Dubai en route to Mumbai. The flight’s delayed a wee bit as a passenger has suddenly changed his/ her mind about making the journey and so the bags need to be offloaded!

     

    This delay isn’t unusual in itself but but I’m now weighing up my options of how I would spend the next 30-40 minutes having already arrived early and had a glass of wine with a snack, checked my emails etc.

     

    Thankfully there are no TVs in the lounge and I suddenly realise that this is such a pleasant change from the airport lounges in India. So, TV is not an option. I could be on my mobile talking to friends and family but I’ve done that too. As it’s nearing the end of the day, I’ve read my favourite newspaper but then i catch the sight of the newspaper rack and wander across to see what other papers there are and which one I might fancy.

     

    The array of newspapers is fascinating as one would expect in a high quality airport lounge – starting with The Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune amongst others from France – Le Monde, der Speigel from Germany, Italy and even Hong Kong. Of course, being the Emirates Lounge you would expect to see papers from the Middle East in Arabic and also in English such as Gulf News and Khaleej Times.

     

    As I’m en route to India, I’m quite eager to read an Indian paper, even if it’s may be a day old, but given that the news changes so little on a day-to-day basis , I knew I wouldn’t miss much if I got hold of yesterday’s paper either. But, no such luck. There wasn’t a single Indian paper in sight – not today’s and not even yesterday’s!

     

    I thought there must be a run on the Indian papers and that they must have all gone. So, I asked the lovely lady at the desk but she claimed ignorance and said that she didn’t think that they carried any Indian newspapers. She politely pointed me to the business centre and suggested that I check on the net.

     

    Now that surprises me. We’re the world’s largest democracy and we have some fairly decent, vaguely readable newspapers being published but they weren’t part of the offering in an English lounge of the Emirates airline. How astounding I thought.

     

    But I figured that the newspaper executives in India or their distribution agents couldn’t care less about ensuring the presence of Indian newspapers in such a place. After all, it couldn’t be too much of an effort to get these to all the lounges in at least the primary destinations around the world. After all, Spanish, Mandarin , English and Hindi are being touted as being ‘the’ four most widely spoken languages in the world today and yet we don’t have at least a presence of our national language papers in this lounge.

     

    Or that they are so far ahead of the game that they believe that it isn’t worth putting newspapers in lounges and those who are interested will find what they need to know on the internet. How true and how clever and so ahead of the curve.

     

    But the airline ought to reflect their clients’ needs and consider keeping Indian papers for so many of us who travel on their airline.

     

    And on the subject of Indian TV channels, particularly the news channels, I was pleasantly surprised recently to find that NDTV 24×7 had suddenly appeared on my TV screen at home in England, even though I don’t recall subscribing to it. I’m not complaining. And it’s not like Virgin or Sky give anything for free. When I found out that this news channel was available within my existing service, I was delighted and rushed to watch with much enthusiasm rather like a dog rushing to fetch a ball that he’s just been thrown.

     

    The excitement, equally rapidly, changed to annoyance when I actually started watching the channel. And I used to love watching NDTV once upon a time. And then after watching for a while I figured what was wrong with it. There were far too many commercial breaks. But what was even more annoying was that there were no commercials.

     

    In India we sometimes forgive the news channels for the poor quality of the news, thanks to the fact that the commercials occasionally make you chuckle or they provide some light entertainment and relief from the often horrid news that sits in between the commercial breaks. But then the penny dropped – it must be OFCOM – the name of the body that governs broadcasters and has been set up to make sure that they are staying within rules of decency and broadcast regulation in the UK.

     

    Thankfully they also govern – on commercial time usage, and heavily penalise any broadcaster who overruns the permissible secondage as stipulated by OFCOM. In India no one bothers and it’s a free-for-all, despite there being regulation to that effect.

     

    Consequently the broadcasters in India stuff the commercial breaks with as many seconds of commercial time as they can sell, put logo after logo on the tickers and call it branding or ‘added value’.

     

    And given that the same news channel feed is delivered to the UK, they are governed by OFCOM which means that these commercial breaks with super excessive secondage will not be allowed to go on air.

     

    NDTV, it seems, is having to fill the gaps in their commercial time on the UK service with stacks of inhouse and channel promos. The promos are never as sexy or funny as the TV commercials and filling the channel with boring promos makes the channel’s news service look seriously out of sync with any other home-grown news channel available in the UK. They really ought to do something about this and tighten up the volume of commercial time being stuffed into the breaks in India. Sadly though, this applies to almost all the channels in the country who find it hard to raise the prices of their commercial time and in order to increase revenue, they simply expand the duration of the commercial breaks knowing that no one’s watching. But then, when the channel is transported overseas , it becomes a messy channel indeed and no wonder it does not get too much local advertising in the UK , for the UK , from the UK. Surely there’s a smarter way to do this.

     

    At least they cannot say ‘I wasn’t aware of it ‘. No prizes for guessing who said this when and in what context.