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Ofcom: TV still most popular platform for news in UK

July 25, 2018

Ofcom has published its 2018 News Consumption in the UK research report, looking at the way adults and older children in the UK consume news across television, radio, print, social media, other Internet sources and magazines.

The report follows qualitative research, published earlier this month, which explored people’s relationship with online news in an ‘always-on’ society.

Findings from the quantitative research include:

  • Television is the most popular platform for news (79 per cent), followed by the internet (64 per cent), radio (44 per cent) and newspapers (40 per cent);
  • UK adults say they use an average of 6.7 individual sources for news;
  • BBC One is the most important news source, used by 62 per cent of UK adults, followed by ITV (41 per cent) and Facebook (33 per cent);
  • Social media is the most popular type of online news, now used by 44 per cent of UK adults;
  • Magazines are rated more favourably than any other news platform for quality, accuracy, trustworthiness and impartiality; and
  • Six in ten children aged 12-15 (60 per cent) claim to be interested in news, while three quarters (77 per cent) claim to consume news on a weekly basis.

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