Every year before the United Kingdom’s summer, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford unveils its Digital News Report. Based on a sizable online survey of more than 95,000 people in 47 countries, representing half of the world’s population, this is the most awaited report within the news industry to understand what is happening with audiences.
According to the latest report, on average, 23% of the online population of those countries use radio for news. This figure is notably higher than average in Kenya (45%), Sweden (38%), Ireland (37%) and Nigeria, Norway and Germany (36%), while it is much lower in Bulgaria and The Philippines (14%), Argentina and Thailand (13%), Japan (10%) and Indonesia (7%).
The weekly reach figures of media brands illustrate that radio outlets continue to be competitive among news providers across the globe. Similarly, radio remains competitive regarding trust, one of its greatest assets. In Kenya, one of the countries where people trust media the most, Citizen Radio is trusted by 89% of the population. On the lower side of the trust scale, no media outlet in Hungary has the trust of more than half the country.
This state of play offers other market players a business opportunity to deliver to potentially underserved female audiences
A growing shift to podcasting
Globally, on average, over a month, 13% of audio consumers get news content from podcasts. While not quantitatively significant, these news podcast audiences are attractive to commercially oriented organizations, as they tend to be younger, better educated, and wealthier than the overall population. These audiences are also disproportionally male, a fact that the authors of the report attribute to the predominance of male hosts. This state of play offers other market players a business opportunity to deliver to potentially underserved female audiences. Such targeting would also help those players stand out from the competition in overcrowded markets.
Another takeaway from the report relates to the distribution of these news podcasts. While many of the most popular podcasts are distributed in video format on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, podcasts are increasingly bundled with other media products in an all-access subscription, thereby enhancing their discoverability and monetization.
The Digital News Report 2024 is worth your time if you work in news. It is free to access and can be found here.
The author is a co-founder and research director at South 180.
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