Key research findings:
* 72% of UK internet users access UK national newspaper brands across platforms weekly, a similar proportion to Denmark, Finland and Germany
* Digital and print newspapers are the top two commercial news sources in the UK for 18-24s
* Digital newspaper readers own more devices and are more active on social media
Newsworks says: Our love of Nordic noir dramas in the UK is well-known but the new Reuters Institute of Journalism Digital News Report suggests that we have more in common with our northern neighbours than just Borgen and The Bridge.
Cross-platform reach of newspapers in the UK is much more comparable to Denmark, Finland and Germany than the US, according to the third annual report, co-sponsored by Newsworks.
In the UK, Denmark and Finland – countries with strong news brands – users tend to start journeys with a trusted traditional news brand, whereas in the US search is the main gateway to news.
Similarly, while the US has witnessed rising access to “born digital players” to the detriment of traditional news brands, in the UK traditional news brands are still accessed digitally by more than half of the online sample.
Judy Harman, planning director at Newsworks, said: “We tend to forget that the UK doesn’t always follow the US when it comes to media trends. While patterns of device ownership are similar, consumption patterns are not the same. In the UK newspaper brands have been at the forefront of the digital revolution and remain strong destination brands across all platforms. Instead of replacing old platforms with the new, we are much more like Finland and Denmark in that we layer the two to create a multi-platform effect.”
Analysis of the UK data by Newsworks shows that more than half of 21-24 year olds and 41% of 18-20 year olds say that digital newspaper brands are their favoured source of commercial news, indicating that a habit for reading newspaper brands across all platforms kicks in around the age of 21.
While 18-24 year olds are most likely to read newspaper brands digitally, printed newspapers remain significant with 43% reading a paper weekly. Interestingly, more of this age group read newspapers in some format than watch TV news.
Yet it is not just young people who are reading newspaper brands across platforms. In the UK the proportion of newspaper readers accessing newspaper content on tablets is up to 15% and is 16% on smartphones, while 84% remain print readers.
Additionally, the more digital devices owned by a person, the more likely they are to have accessed a newspaper brand in the past week – those with one device have a 37% likelihood, which rises to 65% for those with 3+ devices.
When it comes to social media, multi-platform newspaper brand readers are an active and engaged demographic, making up 56% of all people sharing news on social networks and 55% of all people commenting on stories.
In particular, digital newspaper readers are 67% more likely than the average internet user to use Twitter for news, a finding supported by Newsworks and Twitter’s joint study #NewsOnTheTweet, which shows that 59% of UK Twitter users follow a newspaper brand.
Nic Newman, digital strategists, author of the report and research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, said: “News is becoming more mobile, more social and more digital, but news brands and their journalists remain a trusted source of information and a key driver of conversation.”
