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Ofcom admits it’s hard to regulate news on social media

25 March 2024

Ofcom seem to admit they’re unsure what they can do to improve the range and quality of news on social media:

“People have limited control over their social media newsfeeds and trying to design interventions to improve the breadth and quality of news consumed on social media is a complex task.”

Their Online News research update, published today, confirms a lot about what we know about how platforms serve the content they think the user would be most interested in.

We have already learned how Meta is now only behind the BBC and ITV in terms of sources of news and in terms of ‘sources of attention’, its even bigger than ITV.

Ofcom reveal its studies into improving what news people see on social media

Ofcom has carried out some trials and detailed some interesting academic studies, on trying to improve the breadth and balance of news in people’s feeds. These include getting people to follow public service broadcast accounts, follow counter-attitudinal news sources, asking them to review who they follow and adding a trust rating browser extension.

But in short, they say these interventions were complex, not user-friendly and that the algorithms still had a large say on what users saw.

Also complicating the issue is how nearly all social platforms, except for LinkedIn, have made it a lot harder for people to access news websites away from the platform by depriortising or not allowing the ability to add in links to posts.

And Sky News for example, has said how poor Twitter referral traffic had been even before the changes imposed by Elon Musk.

BBC promise more personalisation on iPlayer as it competes with Netflix

Is it too late to close the stable door after the horse has bolted?

Not for BBC Director-General Tim Davie, who will warn tomorrow about allowing “US and Chinese algorithms” to shape what we consume, pledging to invest and modernise all of its online products, including iPlayer, to provide a more personalised service.

Other PSBs are investing more time and effort in their own platforms, primarily for financial reasons, but does this mean our feeds will become even more like the Wild West, with For You pages prioritising poor quality, sensationalised content at the expense of an informed society?

The key takeaways from the Charlesbye report into UK news habits

28 February 2024

“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.

Is more and more content really the answer to journalism’s problems?

9 January 2024

News publishers plan to post more video than any other type of content, according to a Reuters Institute survey

The respected Nic Newman spoke to hundreds of editors, CEOs, and digital executives for the new Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism report, ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2024’.

Understandably, they’re worried about the drop in referral traffic and are looking to whatever they can do to attract and retain audiences (and make money).

But I’m not sure the answer is committing to making even more videos, more podcasts and more newsletters than last year, as they reveal in the survey. I don’t know about you, but I’m reaching saturation point!

Most publishers are still focussing on maximising attention than being respectful of their audience's time, according to this Reuters Institute survey.

Even more worryingly, over half of respondents admit their companies “are mostly focused on maximising attention rather than being more respectful of their audience’s time (37%)”.

As the BBC’s Naja Nielsen recently said, “I think we’re competing with everything you can do on your mobile phone.” We’ve got to have smarter approaches, especially with the rise in news fatigue.

Hopefully we’ll see greater use of technology and data to produce more focused, relevant and engaging content, and organisations being inspired by some great native content creators on the different social platforms.

The study also notes the huge interest in the use of WhatsApp for distribution, but the efforts I’ve seen so far have mainly been link spamming, with little incentive to tap on the post, let alone forward it to friends and family.

The issues facing journalism could also be applied to organisations’ communications challenges too – make it worth your audience’s time to stop and read or watch what you’re sharing. If you don’t, the chances are that they’ll be less likely to do so again.

It’s worth reading the Reuters Institute report on ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions 2024’ in full – tap or click to go to it.

5 things you need to know from Ofcom’s news consumption report

21 July 2023

Reassuringly for once, a new report doesn’t signal the need for a dramatic shift in the way we must communicate with audiences on social media.

But the new Ofcom news consumption report does confirm that it’s a complicated media landscape, with a strategic and sophisticated approach needed if you’re trying to engage a broad range of people.

Here’s the five things you need to know:

1. One in 10 of us use TikTok as a ‘news’ source

Ofcom news consumption report 2023: One in 10 of us use TikTok as a 'news' source

The continued rise of TikTok is perhaps most interesting.

One in every 10 adults (10%) are using it to keep up with the news – more so than BBC Radio 1 and Channel 5.

It’s the fastest growing platform, as even social media rivals slow down or plateau.

Of course, the definition of ‘news’ is broad: emotive human interest stories and showbiz and entertainment news tend to perform well.

It’s not that they’re turning to TikTok for every cut and thrust of the latest Westminster row, but these stats are an issue for the government, who hasn’t been on the platform since last summer.

What is fascinating about TikTok, and what challenges the presumed theory about the platform, is that basic, raw, non-vertical video can perform well on there, as long as it’s at least one of these three things:

New or important news or information
Visually appealing, either in the text caption, or the pictures
Generates some form of emotion, positive or negative

2. The popularity of iPlayer and ITVX for news

This same chart from the Ofcom news consumption report has recorded broadcast on demand (BVoD) for the first time, and it shows pleasing results for the BBC’s iPlayer and the revamped ITVX.

This is despite news not being featured too prominently (you have to scroll down quite a few rows or ‘rails’ as the insiders call them) – unless there is a huge story.

This is likely to rise as more of us get smart TVs (I still use an Amazon Fire stick, but I’m not a big TV watcher.)

I’m curious as to whether Channel 4 and Sky News’ stats are all linear TV or a mixture of on-demand too.

3. There’s been no dramatic changes in what media we mainly use for news, apart from papers

Interestingly, we’ve been generally been using the same forms of media for news that we’ve been accustomed to for the past five years, as new technology offers more flexible and personalised ways to continue to enjoy them.

Print continues to decline, saved by their online operations. The decline in linear TV has been countered by the rise in on-demand options through your remote. Audio options have flourished, from podcasts to catch-up to ad-free subscription services.

Hidden from this table I think is the role of passive forms of news consumption, especially radio, with record numbers listening to commercial radio and listening to a bulletin between their songs.

4. Kids are complicated

A lot is talked about the need for news organisations conquering TikTok to attract young people, but for 16-24 year olds, Instagram is still by far the biggest platform.

But for the younger 12-15 year olds, TikTok is most important social platform, followed closely by YouTube and Instagram – but they’re not interested in news unless it’s very big (understandably). And TV still plays a bigger role than social media.

But what I think is still underplayed in these Ofcom news consumption surveys is the influence of friends and family – and messaging apps.

We may not consciously realise, but we tend to share a lot of news and information in things like WhatsApp chats – which due to their encrypted nature are impossible to track unless someone selects to share it there by tapping a button on a different platform.

5. The importance of the BBC

Despite all the ups and downs of the BBC as an organisation in the media, this report confirms what a vital role it continues to play in how we access news through media, whatever age we are.

Ofcom says, “BBC news output across all its platforms reaches 73% of all UK adults” and it’s still the most important source of information for 12-15 year olds.

The importance of a suitably funded and supported Beeb in providing trusted and impartial news is clear.

But…

The challenge for media organisations is how you make revenue out of this situation. But that’s a different story for a different article.

You can read the Ofcom report here – it’s well-produced and an easy read.

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What young people think of as ‘news’ on Instagram

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