People are turning away from traditional news sources and toward social media, video platforms, and podcasts to get their news, research from The Reuters Institute said.

Their global study of the news economy revealed intriguing but ultimately unsurprising figures, showing that TV and print – traditional news vectors – have gone down in popularity in favour of social media and podcasts, which are less regulated.

In the UK, however, this appears to have taken over less so, the research showed, and was more consistently a trend in the US and some Latin American countries.

The UK saw news audiences for TV (down from 79% to 48%) and print (down from 59% to 12%) fall over the past 12 years, culminating in an online and mobile-first news landscape.

UK news media, while battling the affects of addicting social media and alternative news sources, are also contending with a range of challenges from AI, which has become their main strategic priority, according to the research.

In the US, however, more people get their news from podcasts than papers, as social media has become the top news source for the first time in the country.

Half of those surveyed in the US get their news from TV, while over half (54%) get their news from social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and X.

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The global trends are troubling, as the UK media struggles in their own right.

Brands are experimenting with tri-fold systems of subscriptions, advertisements, and other revenue sources to make ends meet.

The BBC, the largest UK-based news media group, has faced rounds of layoffs and closures, and Sky News, another major broadcaster, announced a strategic review to grow its audience.

Main providers of TV and radio continue to see their audiences dissipate in the UK, though a relative newcomer, GB News, has seen its position grow for broadcast and online in Reuter’s weekly usage rankings.

Trust in the media is at 35%, down from the 51% seen ten years ago, and only marginally higher than the 28% seen in 2020.