New survey data from the Pew Research Center shows that a significant majority of Americans (58%) continue to prefer to get news on digital devices versus only 32% preferring TV. 

The new data on Pew’s "News Platform Fact Sheet", shows, however, a slight rebound in preferences for TV news. 

About 33% of those surveyed in 2024 said they often got their news from TV with another 31% saying they sometimes turned to TV for news. That represented a slight improvement over 2023, when 32% said they often got news from TV and 30% said they sometimes got news from TV. 

About 57% said they often got their news on digital devices while 29% said they sometimes did. 

News websites or apps and search engines are the most common source of news, Pew reported. About two thirds (66%) often or sometimes got their news from news websites or apps while 65% got their news from search engines. More than half (54%) at least sometimes get news from social media, and 27% say the same about podcasts.

Overall, at 86% got their news often or sometimes from digital devices, versus 63% for TV, 42% for radio and only 26% often or sometimes from newspapers. 

The 2024 data is from a survey of U.S. adults conducted July 15-Aug. 4, 2024.

More data and charts are available here. 

LONDON—Despite negative press and recent Congressional testimony by a whistleblower criticizing Facebook lack of action in stopping misinformation, a recent survey from the Pew Research Center shows that Facebook and its other platforms still dominate the social media landscape for news and information. 

The survey, which offers a number of important findings for news organizations planning their social media strategies, found that about 31% of those who regularly get news from social media get it from Facebook, with another 11% of those regular social media users for news getting it from Facebook’s Instagram and 3% from WhatsApp. 

That would indicate that Facebook’s various platforms (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) have about a 45% share among those who get news from social media.  and 

To put those numbers in context, the Pew Research survey also found that the influence of social media as a news outlet remains very important, but is declining. 

It’s survey found that “a little under half (48%) of U.S. adults say they get news from social media `often’ or `sometimes,’ a 5 percentage point decline compared with 2020.” 

Only 19% got their news from social media “often,” a four percentage point decline from 2020, when 23% did. 

In contrast the number of respondents who said they “never” got news from social media rose from 21% in 2020 to 24% in 2021.

Pew asked users of 10 social media sites where they regularly get news on social media and found that about one third of U.S. adults (31%) said they get news regularly on Facebook, followed by YouTube (22%), Twitter (11%), Instagram (11%), Reddit (7%), TikTok (6%), LinkedIn (4%), Snapchat (4%), WhatsApp (3%) and Twitch (1%).

The report also noted that “the majority of regular news consumers of many sites are Democrats or lean Democratic. This may be related to the relatively young age profile of the news consumer base of these social media sites. No social media site included here has regular news consumers who are more likely to be Republican or lean Republican.”

The Pew Research study was based on a survey of 11,178 adults in the U.S. between July 26 to Aug. 8, 2021.

Additional demographic breakdowns and data is available here. 

WASHINGTON—Local TV stations had a saving grace during the height of the coronavirus earlier this year as ad revenue was dropping, retransmission fees. According to a Pew Research Center report on the second quarter of 2020, local TV stations’ gain from retrans fees outperformed what they lost in ad revenue.

Studying the revenue reports from Sinclair, Tegna, Nexstar, Gray and E.W. Scripps—which together own or operate more than 600 stations in the U.S.—Pew found that their ad revenue fell by a median of 24% (Nexstar’s year-over-year numbers do not include former Tribune stations as the companies merged post Q2 2019). Even in a presidential election year, for all station groups but Gray, ad revenue was down from the mid-term elections in 2018.

But retransmission fees paid by cable providers negated these losses, as the median year-over-year increase for the five companies was 37%, helped by an increase in viewership during the early days of the pandemic. Pew says that this equates to a median increase of $87.3 million in revenue; Pew estimates that ad revenue dropped $67.9 million during Q2.

Sinclair was reported to have the biggest jump, earning more than $1 billion in retransmission fees in Q2 2020, compared to $367 million in Q2 2019.

TV news media overall actually saw general increases in its ad revenue for Q2 2020. Pew found that network TV (ABC, CBS and NBC) saw an 11% increase in ad revenue during the quarter. Cable networks, meanwhile, combined netted a 2% year-over-year increase, but it was a different story for each network, with Fox News Channel seeing an increase of 41%, CNN decreasing 14% and MSNBC dipping 27% in ad revenue.

For the complete study, visit Pew’s website.

WASHINGTON—Technology is not making parenting any easier, whether it’s kids using it or the parents, according to a new study from Pew Research Center.

A majority of parents (66%) who have at least one child under the age of 18—as well as possibly having adult children—believe that parenting is harder today than it was 20 years ago. Among the top reasons why is technology, including dealing with the amount of screen time their children have access to.

PLUS: Researchers Find 1 Year Olds Spend an Hour Per Day Watching a Screen

Even while the World Health Organization issued guidelines in 2019 regarding the amount of time young children should spend in front of screens, 71% of parents with children under the age of 12 say they are at least somewhat concerned they might be spending too much time in front of a screen; 31% are very concerned. Interestingly, 84% of parents of a young child said they are either very (39%) or somewhat (45%) confident they know the appropriate amount of screen time for their child.

(Note: this study was conducted before the outbreak of COVID-19)

Even so, 61% of parents of children 11 or younger say they have received advice or information regarding screen time from a doctor or other medical professional.

Most children do interact with some kind of screen—80% of children 5-11 interact with a tablet computer; 63% interact with a smartphone. For children under 5, those numbers drop to 48% for a tablet, 55% for a smartphone. 

YouTube is also a popular platform for children to interact with, as 89% of parents say their children 5-11 watch content on YouTube. So do 81% of parents of 3-4 year olds and 57% of parents with 2 year olds or younger. Parents do credit the platform for entertaining and educating their children, nut a majority do have concerns about their child being exposed to inappropriate content, per Pew.

PLUS: Increased Time Watching TV, on Social Media, Promotes Youth Depression

In addition, parents believe that they themselves may be spending too much time in front of a screen. More than half (56%) say they spend too much time on their phone, while 68% acknowledge that they are at least sometimes distracted by their phone while spending time with their children.

For more information on Pew’s study, visit www.pewresearch.org. 

WASHINGTON—Local news is not immune from the digital revolution, as evident from a recent survey from Pew Research Center. Receiving responses from nearly 35,000 adults, the gap between Americans that prefer to get their local news from television vs. online now only stands at 4 percent, though TV still remains on top at 41 percent (online is 37 percent).