1. June 20th 2017

2. Interest & Avoidance Sources Trust Online news journey Financials
Content
Interest & Avoidance
Sources
Trust
Online news journey
Financials

3. 1. News interest and avoidance

4. Interest in news
First of all lots of people are interested in the news and that hasn’t changed.

5. Frequency of access
Secondly people are accessing it several times a day and even more so today. You can see an increase here each year.
Larger numbers of people repeatedly checking the news. Fresh content on websites is important

6. Types of news user Interest in news Frequency of access
News Lovers
24%
Interest in news
Daily Briefers
45%
Casual Users
32%
Frequency of access
On this basis we can split the population into three types of news user:
News lovers – extremely interested, access more than 5 times a day
Daily briefers – very or extremely interested, less than 5 times a day
Casual users – somewhat interested and access once a day or less
The proportion of news lovers is increasing.

7. News lovers
18%
Looking at Ireland compared to other countries we also have a relatively large proportion of news lovers.
Segmentation A

8. Types of news user
In terms of age, news lovers tend to be older. Casual users tend to be younger.

9. News avoidance c Moving onto News Avoidance.
While we have a high proportion of news lovers we also have a high proportion of people avoiding the news.
In terms of the age groups younger people far more likely to actively avoid the news.

10. News avoidance - why So, why:
53% say that it has a negative effect on their mood. Suggesting that content is important here.
While “Bad news sells” about specific events, it may turn off people in general; if it’s pervasive.
Similar for people feeling that they cannot do anything about it.

11. Interest in news – by category
So coming back to the categories that interest people:
People were asked which news categories interested them: Regional and international were more interesting compared to entertainment and celebrity news.

12. 2. News sources

13. Sources of news
In terms of the news people used in the last week print, tv and radio have continued to decline. Radio is holding up slightly better than the declines in TV and print.

14. Sources of news TV Radio Print Online
USA UK
Germany
France
Italy
Ireland TV
66%
69%
77%
72%
85%
68%
Radio
25%
32%
45%
26%
27%
46%
Print
41%
34%
40%
Online
(Inc. Social media)
74%
60%
71%
81%
83%
Broken down into age bands the differences are stark: print is the realm of the retired. TV and Radio have more gradual differences.
Compared to other countries we have a relatively high proportion of people using radio, somewhat higher using print and a higher proport on social media

15. Main sources of news
Which of the following have you used to access news in the last week.
RTE TV still dominates the traditional market. In terms of online TheJournal.ie is now the most used source.

16. Main sources of news, by age
In terms of demography RTE TV, Radio tends to have an older demographic; TheJournal.ie, TodayFM, Joe.ie tend to be younger.

17. Direct access to politicians
Social media allows people to follow politicians directly, undermining the gatekeeper role of the media
32% follow a politician on social media
Of these 53% follow a left leaning politician, 30% a centre leaning and 43% follow a right leaning.
People don’t just follow the politicians they support the majority of respondents define themselves as centrists.

18. Direct access to politicians
People follow a politicians because they would prefer to hear directly from a politician and get more detail:
Rather than any specific fault of the media (lack of coverage or fairness)

19. 3. Trust in the news

20. Trust in the news
49%
43%
People were asked how much they trusted the new in their country and the news they chose to consume.
Nordics tend to have greater levels of trust. Ireland slightly better than the UK. Only small differences between my news and news in general suggesting that Irish people are not as discerning as say Hungarians or Americans.

21. Trust in news
People were asked if they could trust most of the news most of the time – a low bar – but people tend to agree and few strongly disagree.
This year sees a fall from last year but it is on par with 2015.

22. Perceptions of Trust in news
Why – People trust most of the news.
People are asked a series of questions about trust and people in Ireland tend to be more trusting.
In Ireland 70pc believe news media does a good job compared with news
Irish ppl more likely to trust news as being independent from political or commercial interests and that social media does a good job of distinguishing fact
There is a big difference in the ability of news media and social media.

23. 4. Online news journey

24. Social media brands for news
To understand the online news journey we note the decline in use of Facebook and Twitter in Ireland ahead of international trends. WhatsApp usage is increasing.
The gap between Twitter and the rest narrows when we look at whether they use it for news. While 68% use Facebook for any purpose 41% use it for news.

25. Usefulness of Social media for news
Again, twitter is more highly regarded as being useful for news than other social media platforms.

26. Participation in news coverage
We can define online users in terms of their participation:
Positive – write share and comment
Reactive – may like or share
Passive don’t engage digitally

27. Participation in news coverage
Passive consumers tend to be older

28. Participation in news coverage
Passive participators tend to have lower levels of educational attainment

29. Reasons for commenting on news
Looking at reasons for NOT commenting on the news people prefer to discuss things face to face and are generally not interested in commenting.
Engagement cannot necessarily be estimated from the volume of comments etc.

30. 5. Payment and ads

31. Payment for online news
13%
Just 9% of Irish people have paid for online news content in the last year.
The countries such as Norway with high levels have a high proportion of subscriptions
USA UK
Germany
France
Italy
Spain
Portugal
Ireland
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Denmark
I made a single one-off payment
16%
10%
26%
27%
28%
24%
22%
15%
14%
18%
Subscription for a digital news service
51%
54%
44%
32%
42%
39%
40%
45%
56%
59%
46%
66%
I pay for a subscription that also includes access
34%
36%
38%
43%
I have made a donation
13% 6% 8% 3%

32. Online news payment
In recent years it is growing, but only in a small numbers

33. Online news payment
One positive sign is that younger people are more likely to pay than older people who may not be as comfortable with such an arrangement.

34. Online news payment - for
Internationally people pay in order to access a wide range of sources or to access news from their phone. In Ireland it is often because they were offered a good deal. Or that it was cheaper than paying for access offline. The availability of good quality free news. Is a limiting factor.

35. Online news payment - against
The reason people don’t pay – it’s free.

36. News worth paying for
People are willing to pay for analysis, comment, but also breaking news more so than specialist news in Ireland.

37. Ad blockers
Adblocker usage is greater in Ireland than elsewhere and particularly so among those in younger demographic groups.

38. Summary
Interest & Avoidance: Lots of younger people avoiding the news due to negativity. Lots of younger people also accessing several times a day. Local and international news of particular interest.
Sources: Online continues to increase while mainstream continues to decline. TheJournal.ie overtakes RTÉ online.
Trust: Relatively higher levels of trust in Ireland, particularly in traditional media.
Online news journey: Typical levels of engagement in Ireland and typically stronger among younger age groups.
Financials: Slow progress in getting people to pay for news. Ad blocking more significant among younger age groups.
Good morning my name is Kevin Cunningham and I have been working on this data for the past few months.
How news is being consumed is still evolving as digital technologies discover new ways of gathering, publishing and distributing content.
IN a small media market it is harder to detect what really drives consumption as values can not be clearly identified through consumption habits alone.
In this regard this survey is particularly insightful because it goes beyond examining consumption and asks consumers about how they use and value news.
It is important to track these changes to show how the relationship with news is developing.
This is the second year examining national news consumption and how journalism it is valued in Ireland’s
Building on last year survey we are now seeing the changing patterns in use and attitudes to news and can place Ireland in the wider international context.
This morning I can going to briefly run through some of the main findings in the report.