How Much Do We Value Television News?

Abstract

In its far-reaching survey of the communications market in the UK, communications regulator Ofcom (Office of Communications) reported that despite the overall diversification of the news supply system, television remained the most important and most often used medium for news consumption among the British people (Ofcom, 2013). Nearly eight out of ten adults surveyed by the regulator (78%) said they used television to get their news. Television far outstripped other platforms that were used to access news ‘nowadays’, leaving newspapers (endorsed by 40%), radio (35%) and the internet (32%) in its wake. What also emerged however was that most people today use a range of news sources, of which television is just one. The proportion of British news consumers who said they used only television for their news was much smaller (22%). Such people were more likely to be older and poorer. Focusing on specific named news suppliers, the same research confirmed the continued dominance of television. Overall, more than six in ten people (62%) named a television channel as their most important news sources compared with one in seven (14%) that named a website (Ofcom, 2013).