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Australia ranked 5th in the number of online news subscribers globally, according to Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Digital News Report 2022.
Australia is tied with Switzerland and Norway, each with 17% of their respondents saying they paid for online news content or accessed a paid-for ONLINE news service in 2021.
Norway is in first place (41%), followed by Sweden (33%), Finland (19%), and the United States (19%).
Australia’s 5% increase from last year is the highest growth in 2022, tied with Germany.
According to the report, longer-term patterns imply that several of these early-mover markets are slowing, raising issues about whether they are approaching maturity.
The challenge to persuade the youth
The study found a high degree of market concentration, with the vast majority being older at an average age of 47 across countries.
The report said that persuading younger people to pay remains a critical issue for the industry, with just 8% of news subscribers in the UK being under 30 and 17% in the United States.
The study encapsulates the mindset of many people who grew up with primarily free online resources in a comment from one of its focus groups:
“I don’t like when the New York Times asks me to subscribe to read the news. It’s a scam. News is meant to be free.”
The bulk of subscribers in almost all of the nations listed pay for only one publication.
You may also want to read: New media literacy education campaign urges Aust to Check The Facts (commsroom.co)
However, in the United States and Australia, nearly half of the population (56 percent and 51 percent, respectively) now pay for two or more newspapers, frequently a national and local mix.
According to the report, payment for platform-based news subscription products Apple+ and Twitter Blue is increasing.
Second subscriptions in Australia include a surprisingly high percentage (9%) from US or UK journals like the New York Times and The Times of London.
A less optimistic picture
The study said it found a ‘slightly less optimistic picture’ amid having observed a resurgence in numbers since the Coronavirus outbreak.
It revealed that interest in news and overall news consumption had dropped significantly in many nations, while trust has eroded almost everywhere.
The study also found news fatigue setting in, not just around COVID-19 but also around politics and various other topics, with the number of people intentionally avoiding news increasing significantly.
The study cited adverse effects on people’s mood and incomprehensibility as respondents’ reasons for their ‘selective avoidance,‘ which has doubled in Brazil (54%) and the UK (46%) over the last five years.
It said that news consumption had dropped dramatically across markets, from 63% in 2017 to 51% in 2022.
Despite an expected increased news consumption since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after the study’s data collection, a second Digital News Report survey conducted in five countries in early April found higher levels of selective avoidance.
Among the five countries are Poland and Germany, which the conflict has directly impacted.
The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism commissioned the research to understand better how people consume news in various nations.
The study is based on YouGov’s online survey of over 93,000 online news consumers in 46 markets covering half of the world’s population.
Read the full report here.
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
