How is news consumption changing?
The results of a survey held in early 2022 showed that the majority of adults between 18 and 44 years old used social media as their daily news source, and, interestingly, 45 to 64-year-olds were marginally more likely to do so than to watch network news. This left those aged 65 years and above the only remaining group with a clear preference for network news, and adults in that age bracket were also more inclined to use social media, cable news, or online-only news sites than newspapers. Indeed, print news publications have long struggled to retain audiences, but this growing trend to move online rather than get news via television could foreshadow the gradual decline of TV news. Primetime cable news network viewership was particularly low in 2021, falling back down to pre-pandemic levels (and in the cases of Fox News and MSNBC, even lower than in 2019).Meanwhile, podcast news is gaining ground among younger audiences. A higher percentage of Gen Z consumers use podcasts for news daily than network or cable news, and young consumers are also more likely to consider podcasts a trustworthy news source than older adults. However, the relationship between news consumption and trust in news does not always work in the way one might expect.
