London — Young Britishers have entirely abandoned television news channels and moved towards online news-portals and social media for news updates, according to Ofcom study published by British-based The Guardian newspaper.
The Ofcom study says that the average person aged 65 and above watches 33 minutes of Television news daily, while people between 16-24 watch only two minutes. This is because, newer generation is moving from traditional live broadcast channels to catchup content from streaming services.
Most of the British political parties consider BBC’s 10pm news bulletin to be their vital outlet for shaping opinions among the large section of the public. TV news is still the main way that the British public learn about current affairs, however, in part because older viewers have remained loyal to traditional services.
“There is evidence that UK adults are consuming news more actively via social media. For example, those who access news shared by news organisations, trending news or news stories from friends and family or other people they follow via Facebook or Twitter are more likely to make comments on the new posts they see compared to the previous year,” Ofcom study said.
Further it says that, the increase in people turning to social media for news is being driven by the growing popularity of WhatsApp and Instagram as information sources.
The study also highlights that annual sales of British print newspapers have drastically come down from 22 million in 2010 to 10.4 million in 2018. For this reason, some of the print media channels have already collected a huge number Online reader-base.
