News engages Australians under 40 even more than Facebook, finds new study
A new report, The Youth Chapter, released by Think News Brands has debunked the myth that young Australians don’t engage with news.
The report found that Australians under the age of 40 are embracing news, showing nine in ten young Australians read news every month.
Drawing on Roy Morgan data, the report which was released this month, provided a detailed analysis of Total News consumption for the under 40 demographic.
94% of under 40s in Australia read the news each month. Of that, 96% of 25 to 39 year-olds are reading news and 91% of 14 to 24 year-olds engage with news on a monthly basis.
Of the 20.4 million Australians that read news every month, 42% of that audience is under 40 and each week, news engages more Australians under 40 than any other channel, including Facebook.
Source: The Youth Chapter, Think News Brands
While digital news consumption is high, almost one in every five under 40s get their news from a newspaper.
News consumption is on the rise for this important demographic with dwell time increasing from 63 minutes in 2019 to 86 minutes in 2021.
One in three under 40s access news directly by searching for news or specific stories and going straight to the source.
News readers under the age of 40 are a covetable audience with research showing they are early adopters and influencers across categories from tech to real estate, lifestyle and food with 87% of young news consumers regarded as “trusted advisors” in their sphere of influence.
Source: The Youth Chapter, Think News Brands
Trust is also high among young news consumers with advertising placed in print and digital news far exceeding the levels of trust for search engines, social media and non-news sites.
Think News Brands general manager, Vanessa Lyons, told Mumbrella: “One of the greatest myths is that young people don’t engage with news, a misconception often tied to the thinking that news only means printed newspapers. But these findings show that people under 40 are regularly turning to Australia’s major news publishers for trusted information.
“News brands continue to evolve their offerings to reach and engage younger readers by innovating the way news is delivered both on and off platform and clearly this is working to build the habit of regular news consumption among younger generations.
Source: The Youth Chapter, Think News Brands
“We often hear that print is often for our older generations or demographic,” said Lyons. “Sometimes the shiny new toys, whilst they’re great, you should reconsider some of the more tried-and-tested channels, when it comes to media mix and using your marketing dollars.”
Lyons added: “Particularly with the younger demographic, that’s really the key here. Whist your perception as marketers is that news as a channel is for the older demographic, it really shows here that, compared to social media, or any other platform, news has the biggest reach, it’s got great engagement, so, people are reading the news for longer, they’re engaging in both print and digital.
Source: The Youth Chapter, Think News Brands
“They’re engaging at multiple times, and at the same time their recall and their brand lift is so much stronger than social media and the run of the internet. It’s not about moving all advertising dollars to one platform, but news should definitely be a significant component of your media allocation.”
This report was based on Roy Morgan July 2020 to June 2021 data, Australians aged 14-39 reading news (print) and/or news (digital), or accessed content via the other media channels in the last 7 days, averaged over the last 12 months.
Think News is funded by industry members Seven West Media, News Corp, and Nine.
