The key takeaways from the Charlesbye report into UK news habits
“Twice as many young people get their news from TikTok than the BBC”, shout the BBC’s rivals today – it’s the headline from a report by Charlesbye into the nation’s news habits.
In fact, it has similar findings to the Ofcom news consumption report from 2 years ago: more people, especially younger people, are getting their ‘news’ from social media than, say, sitting to watch the Six.
I say ‘news’, as what is new, informative and interesting can vary upon personal interest – and it isn’t restricted anymore to a selection of stories delivered in a newspaper, homepage or TV bulletin.
The coverage of this report is slightly misleading too – Instagram is still the most popular platform for 18-24 year olds to get their ‘news’, despite Charlesbye branding one of their audience segments ‘Generation TikTok’. And Facebook is still king, overall.
What we can learn from this Charlesbye report into the UK news habits
But there is some useful insights and recommendations for organisations trying to get traction and successfully reach their audiences in a “complex and fragmented” landscape.
Target and tailor your approach, rather than attempting a one-sized fits all, mass media approach.
Identify your key audiences along with their interests, and go to where they get their news, adapting the content accordingly. Charlesbye identify 9 audience groups, each with different habits and preferences.
And TV news is still an incredibly powerful and trusted medium, if you can land your messages on there.
I do agree with the report’s call for greater government backing for public service broadcasters, particularly the BBC, in the face of such misinformation and distrust online. The constant attacks on the Beeb are an attempt to damage and undermine its authority and will have long-term unintended consequences.
And the BBC, along with other ‘traditional’ outlets are already doing great work on engaging less news-obsessive audiences on TikTok and Insta.
The report also surveyed people on political deepfakes, but we should expect higher standards from the parties themselves. For instance, we’ve recently seen the Conservatives post a selectively-edited clip of Sadiq Khan where he slips saying ‘being proud to be anti-racist and anti-semitic’, excluding his correction of ‘tackling anti-semitism’.
Sadiq Khan says the quiet part out loud. pic.twitter.com/dKMOgRopf3
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) February 15, 2024
And don’t think of TikTok as just a ‘young person’s app’ – I’ve seen how there is an increasingly wider and older demographic audience on there (eg my video of Dennis Waterman singing from 40 years ago got 100,000 views after his death).
Anything can go viral on there, if you target it accordingly!
The full report by Charlesbye is here.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
[…] above graphic from a recent study by Charlesbye, shows that campaign communications require a sophisticated targeted approach. It’s more than […]
[…] We’ve seen how Instagram is now the top social platform for this age group in the UK for news. […]
Comments are closed.