General decline in consumption and sharing of news in India: report

Overall consumption and sharing of news declined in India compared with last year, along with a sharp decrease in access to online news while television, too, saw a 10pp decline as a news source, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023, released on June 14. “Among individual news brands, public broadcasters like DD India, All India Radio, and BBC News retained high levels of trust among survey respondents in India, emphasising the importance of public service media,” the report noted. WhatsApp and Facebook were the next two preferred social media platforms for news in India among the survey respondents. Globally, the report found that “video-based content, distributed via networks such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are becoming more important for news, especially in parts of the Global South, while legacy platforms such as Facebook are losing influence.” Barely 28% of respondents said they accessed news via Facebook in 2023, compared with 42% in 2016. They have little interest in many conventional news offers oriented towards older generations’ habits, interests, and values, and instead embrace the more personality-based, participatory, and personalised options offered by social media, often looking beyond legacy platforms to new entrants, many of whom drive few referrals to media organisations and do not prioritise news”.