News consumption in the UK

Media use and attitudes Attitudes to news Research, statistics and data
Published: 20 July 2023
Last updated: 8 May 2025

This series of reports looks at UK adults' consumption across television, radio, print, social media and other websites or apps.

We look at the UK news market as a whole, but also publish individual reports for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

2025

News Consumption Survey

Our research into news consumption across television, radio, print and online.

Document Date published
Adults News Consumption Survey - Technical Report (PDF) 8 May 2025
Adults News Consumption Survey - online questionnaire (PDF) 8 May 2025
Adults News Consumption Survey data tables (XLSX) 8 May 2025

Teen News Consumption Survey

Our research into news consumption across television, radio, print and online among children / teenagers aged 12-15.

Document Date published
Teens News Consumption Survey - Technical Report (PDF) 8 May 2025
Teens News Consumption Survey - online questionnaire (PDF) 8 May 2025
Teens News Consumption Survey data tables (XLSX) 8 May 2025

Older reports

This report provides the findings of Ofcom’s 2018 research into news consumption across television, radio, print and online. It is published as part of our range of market research reports which examine the consumption of content, and attitudes towards that content, across different platforms.

The aim of this slide pack report is to inform an understanding of news consumption across the UK and within each UK nation. This includes sources and platforms used,  the perceived importance of different outlets for news, attitudes to individual news sources, local news use and news consumption in the nations.

The primary source is Ofcom’s News Consumption Survey. The report also contains information from our Media Tracker survey, and a range of industry currencies including BARB for television viewing, Touchpoints for national newspaper readership, ABC for newspaper circulation, and comScore for online consumption.

Please note, because of changes we have made to the 2018 News Consumption Survey methodology, it is not possible to make direct comparisons to previous data. Further detail on how and why we changed the methodology can be found on slide 143 of the report.

News consumption in the UK: 2018 report (PDF, 2.6 MB)

News consumption in the UK: 2018 data tables (XLSX, 18.2 MB)

News consumption in the UK: 2018 questionnaire (PDF, 2.1 MB)

News consumption in the UK: 2018 raw data

News consumption in the UK: 2018 technical report (PDF, 183.3 KB)

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