When I was a younger man than I am now I loved mustard.
Our local Sainsbury’s had a choice of four and I would buy them to experiment. After all, what mustard would taste good on a ham sandwich was quite different to a barbeque sausage.
So, when our Sainsbury’s moved to a new site four times as big the mustard choice also expanded. There was now 16 different types of mustard. There wasn’t just one type of Dijon mustard. There was four. And English, spicy beer mustard and three types of American burger mustard.
Choice now paralysed me and the first time I went I left without buying any.
What I’d come across in this is something academics call ‘choice overload bias’. This means that when there is too much choice your satisfaction can actually decrease. We are tormented by the fact we may be buying the wrong thing.
Communicators who are looking to reach a local audience are faced with choice overload bias on a regular basis. What channel to use when there are so many?
When I started my career in local government the channels were a hard to use website, the local paper, local radio and quarterly residents magazines.
Social media obliterated all that and there are so many more places to get information.
Cutting through the noise is hard which is why Ofcom’s Review of Local Media Findings interim report is so useful.
I’ve gone through their 36,000 lines of data for you so you can better navigate the metaphorical supermarket shelves.
Key findings
Local newspapers are in an existential crisis. This time they really mean it. Print weekly paper readership across the UK has dropped 19 per cent in 12-months. Regional dailies have dropped 15 per cent in the same period.
Not only that, but there has been a loss of 271 titles between 2005 and 2022.
We already have news deserts. There are boroughs in London without a newspaper circulating and the same can be found in other parts of the country.
We don’t want to pay for local journalism. Not only do we not want to pay we don’t want to pay for ads. Digital or otherwise. Ad revenue is pouring out of the hole in the newspaper’s bucket.
There are experiments with local news. A spate of email-first news services that cover cities have taken off but all attempts at building a new form of journalism over the past 20 years has struggled. There are hyperlocal independent sites across the UK.
Struggling journalism is bad for democracy. The Government’s Cairncross review into local journalism and other academic research all point to this. There is a link between voter turnout and newspaper circulation.
Yet, the demand local news as an entity is surprisngly strong. Be that local politics, events, weather, sport or traffic, weather and travel we want to know about it. All of us. Not just the over 50s.
Local news and current affairs is surprisingly of interest. Almost half – 49 per cent – of 16 to 24-year-olds are interested in local news in their area. I know. I’m shocked as you are. This rises to 73 per cent of over 55-year-olds. This may be the roads that are being built, the cuts to the leisure centre or the event in the park.
But local campaigns not so much. One in five 16 to 24s is interested in a campaign on somethinmg like crime rising to a quarter of 55 to 64-year-olds.
And yes please to weather. Maybe its because we’re British but the category of local weather updates was the most popular with people. Six out of ten of younger demographics were interested rising to 80 per cent of over 65s.
But how we’re accessing this local news has splintered more than I could have imagined. If its not local newspapers then what?
This is where this handy illustration comes in.
I think of it as a dartboard with your street at the centre radiating out to your neighbourhood, city, town, village then your county then your nation.
In your street, it’s WhatsApp and Nextdoor you plug into then as you go wider its social media, newspaper’s social media and then as you approach the region and country its TV and radio too.
I like how they’ve made this visual.
In your street or neighbourhood, WhatsApp and the neighbourhood site Nextdoor are important. As you move towards the town or village and up through the country to the region or country then other platforms become important.
We often forget about TV and radio. There are 39 BBC stations and 250 commercial radio stations and in Wales the Welsh language S4C station plays an important regional role. But broadcasting only comes into play on stories that will reach broad audiences on the edge of the dartboard.
Local news is being consumed by social media with local groups like Facebook community groups now the biggest single place. The secret to good data, I find, is that it can challenge your own experience. I’ve been an advocate for Facebook groups for a long time but even I’m surprised to see that nationally it is now in pole position for local news.
The BBC. I often say in training that making friends with your BBC local democracy reporter (LDR) is essential. They are a trusted channel and that single LDR can shape content for multiple outlets.
Delve deeper and you’ll find newspaper’s digital footprint is important. The data shows 17 per cent for websites and apps of news outlets. Confusingly, it adds 9 per cent to other nmews websites such as Reach plc’s Birmingham Live. Reach fill prettty much all the top 10 for web pages with the highest audience.
People have left print for the web but sill trust local journalism.
Younger people consume through social media. The stat given is 16 to 34s are consuming news twioce as much on the socials compared to adults aged 55 and above.
Podcasts locally? Nah. Podcasts have enjoyed a boom in the 2024 General Election coverage but with five per cent using them for local news this isn’t a factor locally just yet.
What the data says
Firstly, the Ofcom Local Media Review is a useful tool.
While it breaks down into age demographics it also breaks down if you drill deep enough into regional differences. So, if you’re Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, West Midlands, South West, London or wherever a bit of time spent to refine the data would be time well spent.
A word of warning.
There is a top level summary of 56-pages and the data sets of 36,000 lines you can plough through.
When you break it down
I’ve selected one of the many data tables to include in its entirity. As you’ll see, there are some surprises.
Q: What sources do you get your local news from? By percentage (source: Ofcom)
| Channel | 16-24 | 25-34 | 35-44 | 45-54 | 55-64 | 65+ |
| Social media (FB, Insta, X) | 63 | 63 | 59 | 56 | 44 | 36 |
| TV | 29 | 43 | 50 | 54 | 64 | 69 |
| Word of mouth | 45 | 46 | 41 | 49 | 54 | 59 |
| Radio | 27 | 32 | 32 | 34 | 32 | 29 |
| Print newspapers | 17 | 15 | 17 | 20 | 24 | 32 |
| Newspaper websites & apps | 14 | 19 | 23 | 21 | 26 | 23 |
| Messaging or neighbourhood apps (WhatsApp & Nextdoor | 14 | 19 | 23 | 21 | 26 | 23 |
| Email newsletters | 15 | 22 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 18 |
| Local news websites | 22 | 22 | 23 | 19 | 20 | 18 |
| Search engines | 34 | 37 | 39 | 31 | 29 | 24 |
Conclusion
I thought the local news landscape was fractured but I had no idea it was as fractured as this. Of all of iot, I love the dartboard graphic that shows how local news can feel very different depending on your perspective.
So, if its your street or neighbourhood its one thing – WhatsApp or Nextdoor – but as you move out its social media then TV and radio.
Given that there is this change none of us can take things for granted.
I help deliver training to help communicators communicate better ranging from ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER which is the broad skills workshop to ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS and ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED.