Category Archives: media relations

DATA REVEALED: What media people in the UK are consuming in 2025 

Often times, it’s not the attention grabbing lines that are the most useful from Ofcom data and 2025’s Media Nations report is no exception.

I’ll talk about the findings around YouTube that got most attention shortly, but for me the most useful single table was the monthly reach of online and offline selected media activities.

It’s useful because it paints a broad picture of what content people are consuming on average across the UK.

This is it. I recommend you study it and save it. 

What media we consume in the UK in 2025

In short, the most popular content consumed by all ages across the nation is watching video on demand. That’s telly that we can catch-up with. That includes iPlayer, Channel 4, ITV Disney+ as well as a whole list of other fringe platforms regulated by Ofcom. That’s things like Dave, BFI Player as well as less August platforms like the Adult Channel. 

Overall, 85 per cent are watching video on demand. That’s considerably higher than the 67 per cent who watch live TV.

The data shows the need to recalibrate comms teams 

Social media is the second most consumed data in the UK with 84 per cent having used it at least once in the previous month. This is more than three times the number reading print newspapers or reaching what Ofcom call online news brands. That’s everything from a local Reach plc title to the BBC online. 

When I consider how often a team can be pointed resolutely at traditional media this data shows how outdated this concept is. Traditional media still has a role absolutely. The crisis posed by the car driving into the Liverpool FC trophy parade shows this. Responsible reporting of police announcement dampened down the potential for a flashpoint. But so many days of the year people are not moved to head to a news site as a destination over scrolling.

I’ve been making this observation for more than a decade and I’m not alone in this. It’s refreshing when this adjustment is made but all too many don’t. Planning, creating and posting effective social media should be a core skill in 2025. 

Radio is the perennial Cinderella platform

Yet again, radio makes an appearance high in the chart with 68 per cent listening on a radio set and 38 per cent listening to live radio online. Strong numbers. 

However, so much live radio is not something that public sector comms teams can easily tap into. Regional BBC radio and maybe community radio are where conversations can be had but elsewhere in the report shows around 15 per cent of the population are listening to regional stations.

The kind of audio younger people are consuming is online music enjoyed by almost two thirds of the wider population streaming YouTube, Spotify or another music streaming service. For younger people this rises to 90 per cent.

What this may flag up to the eagle eyed is the advertising value of reaching younger people through Spotify ads. 

Podcasting 

Keep an eye on podcasting but not too much of one. This is a national pastime rather than local with 35 per cent listening. Elsewhere in the report, under 34s are most likely to be listening to entertainment podcasts and over 35s are most drawn to news. If you have a nationally significant piece of news or some niche content this could work for you but this is not a well-trodden path. I’d love to see more. 

Your TV and YouTube 

Someone wise once said that things get really interesting when they get a bit boring when it comes to technology. YouTube is just that. It’s not new an exciting is it? But it is pulling in strong numbers. 

Much attention in the Ofcom press release was paid to the report’s revelation that YouTube is making inroads in people’s TV sets. Smart TVs connect to the web and can be watched easily. The overall figure has risen by 47 per cent from 14 minutes a day on average per UK adult to 21 minutes.

Overall, we are watching more TV with the figure now standing at 39 minutes, a rise of 13 per cent year-on-year. 

Again, there’s an opportunity here for some YouTube ads via Google. 

The strength and danger of broad figures

There’s something to be gained from broad brush figures which this blog features. There are elements of breaking it down for different age groups in the document and I’d encourage you to drill into the report of you need more. 

There are versions for Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland too. I’ll blog about them seperately. 

You can find the full Ofcom Media Nations 2025 here. 

I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape ESSENTIAL AI FOR PUBLIC SECTOR COMMS, ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER, ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS and ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS REBOOTED.

Creative commons credit: Newsagent, King’s Parade, Cambridge.

PRESS POST: Where indie news is in 2024 and why you should be bothered

One of the best meetings I ever had in my time in local government was post-2011 riots with police and bloggers.

There we were at Wolverhampton police station, two police Superintendents, four bloggers and me from Walsall Council.

It wasn’t, as the saying goes, an interview without coffee but more a constructive chat.

While riots had gripped other parts of the country, our part of the West Midlands had avoided the worst of it. In part, this was because the Superintendents had used Twitter to shoot down rumours in real time as they emerged. 

The bloggers would spot the rumour and one of the officers would shoot them down.

It was a remarkably effective tactic and it became the cornerstone for how we tackled emergency planning. 

If you think that’s common sense, you’ll have to remember that the Metropolitan Police were actively discussing how to make a kill switch to turn the internet off at a time of crisis. No, really. They were.

As the meeting ended and we filed out, it only then occurred to me that the local regional paper wasn’t there. Why? Because they didn’t use social media and preferred if people waited until the next day to find what had been going on. No, really, they did.

Why journalism is important

In really simple terms, a source of information makes people more informed so they are more likely to vote. There is more faith in the process if they can see it being held to account. 

Without this oil, the democratic process and community cohesion, that ability to get along suffers.

Yes, public sector comms people will often swear about a particular reporter or publication but on balance they are a necessary part of society. 

The promise of local bloggers 

Around 2009, former civil servant Will Perrin launched the Talk About Local project to promote and explore the idea that a new generation of journalism would emerge. Concerned citizens armed with laptops would start new local news sites.

The movement was helped by thenlocal government minister Eric Pickles who insisted that bloggers – or anyone – could tweet or livestream from public meetings.

In the West Midlands, some good sites emerged such as, WV11 in Wolverhampton, A Little Bit of Stone and Lichfield Live in Staffordshire and the unrelated Telford Live in Shropshire emerged. There were some good debates about how much press officers should support those blogs. I was very much in the ‘treat them like journalists’ camp. 

Some of those sites fell away or morphed into Facebook groups. Brownhills Bob’s Facebook group has a staggering 56,000 members. But that early promise of a revolution in the sector never really took hold. It’s hard holding down a job in the day then holding your council to account at night.

So, where is alternative news today?

Two things I want to flag up with you.

Alternative news is a £24.6m economy

Firstly, the Public Interest News Foundation. This is a UK-Government funded project to map alternative news providers. I was surprised to read that there are the best part of 400 websites and radio stations across the UK that cover news in one form or another.

Their 2024 report is a useful read as it sets out the impact of these sites. There are around 350,000 unique users per site which makes them potentially influential. Many are affiliated with regulators such as Ofcom or Ipsos which gives additional confidence to their standards.

In some parts of the UK, where there are news deserts, coverage of news by an independent provider is all there is. 

Their map of indie news sites is worth a look if you’re wondering if there’s one in your area.

Email first providers 

Aside from that,, a new generation of news providers has emerged that follow an email-first strategy. Mill Media secured funding to launch publications in Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and Liverpool with sites in Glasgow and London to follow.

Refreshingly, these publications are not powered by clicks but subscribers. So, three or four stories a day are published to subscribers. Those who have opted into the paid model get more content. They are a deeper dive. 

The Manchester Mill site tells the story: “The idea was very simple: would people start valuing and paying for local news again if it was done in a completely different way? More in-depth; more nuanced; with stories that were more enjoyable to read and weren’t covered in horrible advertising.”

I’ve been meaning to research what these look like for some time but haven’t had the time to go through the numbers. 

So, what?

Of course, the acid test for public sector comms is so what? Independent media isn’t poised to replace traditional media. There won’t be say, Blog Preston sellers in the streets although many providers have experimented with print. The money isn’t there in the sector squeezed by Google and Facebook but this can be an extra voice in the community.

Yes, they could carry your campaign message but they may well want to ask you questions. Like the reporter v press officer relationship this can ebb and flow.

This is how its supposed to be. 

LONG READ: Mustard, too much choice and definitive data on how UK local media is being consumed in 2024

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)

Channel16-2425-3435-4445-5455-6465+
Social media (FB, Insta, X)63 6359564436
TV294350546469
Word of mouth454641495459
Radio273232343229
Print newspapers171517202432
Newspaper websites & apps141923212623
Messaging or neighbourhood apps (WhatsApp & Nextdoor141923212623
Email newsletters152216182018
Local news websites222223192018
Search engines343739312924

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.

SIMPLE STEPS: How to start to answer a media query

I accidentally killed a sacred cow this week.

For years I’ve agreed with the view that everyone thinks they can do comms.

The librarian with the clip-art poster because they think they can do comms.

The director asking for drone footage because they think they can do comms.

The transport officer’s website knocked up because they think they can comms.

They all think they can do it from design to writing and they’re almost always wrong.

But it dawned on me the one thing all the self-appointed battalion of experts will run from is to answer the phone to a journalist.

I’ve also come to realise that it’s also the one thing that most PR and comms people will really dread.

During training, it’s clear that this is one thing that fills people will fear.

Let me share something with you, the strategy is simple.

First, ask their name, who they work for, what their question is and what their deadline is.

If they’re pressing you for information immediately they’re just doing their job but you don’t have to answer. Check it out first.

Your organisation has maybe thousands of people making tens of thousands of decisions a day. There’s no way you know what’s happening everywhere. You are not omnipotent.

So the answer to them: ‘I don’t know, I’ll find out’ is a reasonable one. Keep repeating it if you need to.

Once you know this strategy, it becomes easier and you’ll become more confident in doing the hardest task in comms and PR.

For more information about ESSENTIAL MEDIA SKILLS I deliver training head here.

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