​Six-year view on changing media consumption in the UK

This spring, elephant communications is running three new pieces of consumer research looking at UK news consumption habits and tracking year-on-year changes since the study began in 2012 - one of the most comprehensive studies on the subject now, spanning 30 editions of research.

The first of three new studies looks at daily media habits during the working week. Mobile devices have had a significant impact on news consumption habits - particularly in the last two years - and have gone some way to re-shape the broader media mix that consumers engage with for news and current affairs information. But notions of ‘new world’ media replacing ‘old world’ media seem to over-simplify what’s actually going on, as a number of print and broadcast media are now consumed on a broader range of formats. The winners and losers in terms of daily media consumption for news are not actually that obvious. Some media have risen and fallen, some have held firm. The overall media mix has broadened and perhaps the role of some media, to the consumer at least, has changed.

Regional and local news consumption is also interesting. Around 50% of adults still place importance on following local news, although the channel mix has changed.

One impact of the growing popularity of online, mobile and social formats of newsgathering is a notable convergence between weekend and weekday news habits.

Age group continues to be a factor in understanding differences in media habits, but other significant factors relating to family size and geography also proved significant.

Trust continues to be an important issue for the consumer – and the relationship between content and channel we will be revisiting in our second study next month. In the age of debate on fake news, consumers have a clear sense on what they want from news as well as the topics and tone of communication that matters to them.

During May, the elephant team will be hosting a number of open sessions on highlights from the new studies. Do contact us through our newsroom for more information.