Radio has fallen behind Google as a medium for the general public to receive news, according to new research. The research, published by corporate communications consultancy Open Road and research and strategy consultancy Populus found that the search giant is now the second most popular source of news information, as the general public increasingly use […]
Radio has fallen behind Google as a medium for the general public to receive news, according to new research.
The research, published by corporate communications consultancy Open Road and research and strategy consultancy Populus found that the search giant is now the second most popular source of news information, as the general public increasingly use search to find news on demand.
Open Road and Populus polled 2,004 members of the GB public and 195 opinion formers and compared changes in media consumption habits from 2011 to 2013, as well as attitudes to media, key journalists, brands and corporate crises.
Traditional media decline in influence from 2011 and 2013, with digital media seeing the biggest changes – and increases – over the period. Key findings include:
• Google (ranked 2nd) and Facebook (ranked 4th) are firmly established as top news sources for the public; who increasingly receive their information from search or peer to peer over social channels over traditional media.
• Google is rapidly catching up with TV as most popular news source, with 60% of the UK public using it regularly as a new source compared to 74% using TV in 2013, a narrowing of 11% percentage points since 2011.
• Facebook’s popularity as a public news source was the fastest riser, up 32% since 2011. 45% of the public used the site as a news source regularly, more than print national newspapers.
• Radio fell furthest as a popular news source as just half (47%) the public said they tune in regularly; down nearly a quarter from 2011. But radio remained highly popular amongst opinion formers, with 9 in 10 using it often.
• The research highlighted large differences in opinion former and public Twitter consumption. 41% of opinion formers use Twitter several times a day, compared to just 7% of the public. 66% of the public said they never used Twitter as a source of news.
• Opinion formers were twice as likely to consume national newspapers in print regularly (74% of those surveyed) than the public (37% of those surveyed).
The research also asked respondents’ opinions on a range of recent high profile crises ranging from horsemeat, the Olympics, Jimmy Savile and taxation, looking at the impact on the corporate reputation of the organisations involved.
Rebecca Reilly, Open Road Director, said: “Broadcast remains a dominant news source for the public, but Google is quickly catching up. While our data shows that both TV and radio have seen a dramatic decline in daily news consumption by the general public in just two years, Google and Facebook are increasingly being used by the public to discover and consume news on demand.
“And, while Twitter has seen a large spike in regular use by opinion formers, it is far less popular with the general public which shows us that businesses and brands need to communicate over a broad spectrum of media to reach a diverse stakeholder base.”
2013 data on public media consumption is available here.
