The Daily: How news consumption habits are changing—Will WhatsApp emerge as a hub, how many people use TikTok for news, and more

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss if folks will start consuming news on WhatsApp, how people get their news on digital channels, and some interesting generational gaps that exist regarding social media news consumption. Join host Marcus Johnson, along with director of reports editing Rahul Chadha and vice president of media, content, and strategy Henry Powderly for the conversation.

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Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson (00:00):

This episode is brought to you by TikTok for Business. Are you ready to rizz up your brand? Well, you're in luck. TikTok is where discovery drives outcomes, and three in four users say they will buy from a brand they've seen on TikTok's platform. Learn more at tiktok.com/business.

Rahul Chadha (00:21):

It doesn't mean that people are actually... the news publishers are getting a lot of referral traffic, meaning people aren't clicking links through on TikTok to get to a news publisher's website or app or something. They're just seeing the news there. But I think they're caught between a rock and a hard place where it's like, "What other choice do they have?"

Marcus Johnson (00:43):

Hey, gang. It's Tuesday, October 1. Rahul, Henry, and listeners, welcome to the Behind the Numbers Daily, an eMarketer podcast made possible by TikTok. I'm Marcus, and today I'm joined by two people. We have with us our director of reports editing. Based in Maryland, it's Rahul Chadha.

Rahul Chadha (01:00):

Hi, Marcus. Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson (01:01):

Hey, fella. Of course, of course. We're also joined by our SVP of media content and strategy. He is based in Maine. It's Henry Powderly.

Henry Powderly (01:10):

Hey, Marcus. Thanks for the invite.

Marcus Johnson (01:11):

Of course. My pleasure. We've got the fact of the day. Why in many Western cultures do we place the wedding ring on the fourth finger on the left hand? Do we know?

Henry Powderly (01:23):

No.

Rahul Chadha (01:23):

I have no clue.

Marcus Johnson (01:25):

I had no idea. Yeah, the things we do just because we've always done it that way. So this originated from the ancient Romans who believed that a vein called the Vena Amoris, or vein of love, ran from the heart to the tip of the fourth finger on the left hand. And so they put it on that finger because that was the one that was closest to the heart, so to speak, which is beautiful sentiment. But when we found out that that's not the case, we just kept doing it for no reason whatsoever. Well, some places. There are several countries in the world that will often place the ring on the right hand instead, including Germany, Denmark, India, and others. So some people love rebelling from tradition, which makes sense because there is no vein. There is no vein there. But we still, it's fine.

Henry Powderly (02:18):

Well, there's veins, right? We've got veins. Just not that vein.

Marcus Johnson (02:21):

Yeah, exactly. There are no veins. We do have... Yeah, that's not what I'm telling people, hopefully. That we have them, just not there. Not in that bit. All right. Anyway, today's real topic, how the way we consume news is changing.

(02:43):

All right, gents. So today, we're talking about the ways that we consume news and how they are changing. But before that, I want to start the conversation with a news article from the New York Times. Katie Robertson and Mike Isaac, who were writing about how news outlets are experimenting with a feature in the world's most popular messaging app, WhatsApp, that allows them to send links and headlines directly to followers. So they at least are explaining that traffic to news sites, as we all know, has fallen sharply along with the ad revenues those clicks generate, partly because Google and Facebook made news less prominent on their platforms.

(03:20):

But, they say, some publications have found a glimmer of hope on WhatsApp. Last year, they introduced WhatsApp Channels in a separate tab for certain countries, which is a one-way broadcast that lets publishers send links and headlines to followers and build direct relationships with readers. But Rahul, do you think that folks will start to consume news on WhatsApp, and how much will this catch, on in your opinion, out of 10?

Rahul Chadha (03:46):

Yeah, we talked a little bit about this actually before the podcast started. I think it actually depends a lot on what country we're talking about. I think usage of WhatsApp is not a monolith when you look at all these diverse geographies. It's incredibly popular in markets like India and Brazil. And I think it also paired with... The adoption of WhatsApp paired with people's initial access to the internet for the first time. So I think in those kinds of markets, I think it's much more likely that people might be more willing to consume news via WhatsApp because they don't think of it the way we might in the US as just a somewhat separate channel that's exclusively for messaging. I think they're more apt to adopt new uses within the platform that serve their needs or maybe just satisfy their curiosity.

(04:33):

I think in the US, because there's been this longer tradition of other channels for accessing news via multiple platforms, there might be a bigger challenge for WhatsApp. And I think there's something to be said for the fact that in the US, too, there is such a thing as feature creep when it comes to WhatsApp. So people can get news via a bunch of different channels. If they think of WhatsApp as a messaging channel first and foremost and it starts to look increasingly something like Facebook, that could potentially turn off users, I think.

Marcus Johnson (04:59):

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a fair point. It sounds like not very many out of 10 is where you land.

Rahul Chadha (05:05):

Oh, sorry. I forgot to give you a number. I mean, I think there is a potential.

Marcus Johnson (05:08):

[inaudible 00:05:08].

Rahul Chadha (05:08):

I would say a seven, actually. Not wholly pessimistic, but I would put it like a eight or a nine in other markets.

Marcus Johnson (05:14):

Okay, okay.

Rahul Chadha (05:16):

I think it just remains to be seen, but I do think that there is the potential, obviously, for people who are happily using WhatsApp to adopt it.

Marcus Johnson (05:24):

There are some WhatsApp channels that have seen good traction already from publishers, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they're consuming a ton of news this way or that it will be a trend that sticks around. CNN and the New York Times, they say they've got about 14 million followers each. BBC News, 9 million, New York Post, eight. So there are people there. Whether this is a way that they frequently consume news or will consume news in the future remains to be seen. Henry, where do you land on this?

Henry Powderly (05:53):

I tend to agree. I might give it more of a five in market. But I think what's interesting is, could this also catch on to other messaging platforms in the US? I mean, publishers are not shy about trying to bring news to channels, and I think SMS and messaging is certainly an opportunity for them.

(06:15):

And one of the things that's nice about doing it in the messaging channel is it's in a closed community. I think one of the challenges that you had with Facebook and news wasn't necessarily that the feed of news was taking over your news feed. It was sometimes the discourse that surrounded it that was either your own relatives or strangers that you didn't know and selling the experience of news, whereas a closed community like a message thread or a messaging app seems to be more insulated by that.

Marcus Johnson (06:45):

Yeah.

Rahul Chadha (06:45):

I think also, too, it's interesting that Henry pointed that out because my understanding of how that the channel works is they really have tried to limit that additional discourse that people might have around the news stories. I think people can respond with an emoji, but not text. So I think to Henry's point, they're being quite deliberate about trying to limit additional conversations around the news articles that might, I don't know, agitate people or upset them.

Marcus Johnson (07:10):

Yeah.

Henry Powderly (07:11):

Yeah, I would be curious to see, if it catches on, how other messaging platforms or even SMS would catch up to that. Because if you think now, even my own text chain is a mess of people I know, political ads. More and more and marketing messaging is getting in there, so some kind of a way to organize that to make it more purposeful would actually be welcomed.

Marcus Johnson (07:33):

Yeah.

Rahul Chadha (07:33):

One other thing I think about, too, is many years ago now at this point, when I was working as an analyst, I wrote an art report about marketing within messaging apps. And at that time, the general sentiment among users was that this is an intimate channel. It's something that's for my relationships with my actual friends and families. And a brand intervening on that kind of communication was something I think there was a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction against, too, at that time.

Marcus Johnson (07:59):

Yeah.

Rahul Chadha (07:59):

I don't know now. I mean, this was so long ago. It's possible that sentiment has changed around that thing. But I do think that medium, people have different expectations around texts in a messaging platform, I think, than they do in terms of how they communicate with their friends, family, and maybe even brands or companies, including news publishers, than they would in other channels too. So I think that is a potential obstacle I think, too, as well against the news publishers.

Marcus Johnson (08:21):

Yeah. I wonder what the experience is going to look like because Henry, it sounded like you were saying if it got sorted out a bit better, if it was a bit more organized, it might be easier to manage. And I wonder if people would have less concern if it was "Okay, friends go over here. Brands go here or news publishers, whoever, go here," or even being able to pin specific topics. Because some publishers like the Financial Times, they were creating multiple channels on specific topics as opposed to having one main FT channel. And so they have one for the financial markets that's got about over 200,000 followers, one for the Israel-Hamas War, the US election, and they post, I think... Well, they started, at least, posting one free article there a day. So maybe folks could pin a topic and then follow it, get the messages directly to their inbox, and then unfollow that, unpin it whenever they wanted to. Maybe that's the formula.

Henry Powderly (09:17):

Sure. And if you think about it, that's what happens to email. Email used to be a straight feed of all your messages. Now, you've got your priority tab. You've got your newsletters. You've got your promotions.

Marcus Johnson (09:27):

Yep, yep. And they were likening this way of consuming news to newsletters. You don't subscribe to the entire brand. You subscribe to a particular newsletter based on the content that you want to ingest.

(09:40):

What's also interesting here is that WhatsApp appears to be heading towards news whilst Meta, WhatsApp's parent, has backed away from news to a certain degree. This year, Meta said it would shut down the news tab, leaning away from political content in particular. It will be there still, but it'll just be harder to find. They got rid of the election integrity team they put together. But it's probably better for the brand that they do, Meta as a whole, maybe also Facebook in particular, because Americans' trust in media news is at an all-time and low, according to Gallup survey.

(10:11):

And it's probably not news to anyone, but probably one reason is that they're paying less and less attention to news. Pew Research found that the share of US adults who followed the news most or all of the time fell 13 points from 51 to 38% from 2016 to 2022. Even amongst older demographics, who typically keep up with the news more so or more traditional ways than younger folks, adults over 65 attention to the news fell 11 points from 75 to 64%. And for 50 to 64-year-olds, attention to the news fell 15 points from 61 to below half to 46.

(10:52):

And Pew research, they just put out a study on news consumption habits. That data I mentioned was from 2016 to 2022, but they just put out some new research, and one of the headline takeaways was that digital devices are by far the most common way Americans get news. 86% of Americans saying that's how they at least sometimes get their news. 63% said it was TV, 42% radio, 26% print. Henry, what did you find most interesting about this recent Pew Research data into how news consumption habits have changed across platforms?

Henry Powderly (11:25):

Sure. And I don't think it's surprising that digital devices are leading the way. I think there isn't a media format out there that is not ubiquitous on our phones and tablets and stuff, so I think that's really interesting. And I also think news is something that is personal to people, people take it with them, and so the idea that it's on their mobile devices first fits.

(11:46):

One of the things I found interesting about the data was that news sites and news apps are also among one of the top channels for engaging with news, and I really think that is a bit of a resurgence going on right now on going back to the actual channels for their information. It might be because they're finding it less on some of the social platforms that used to really feature news. It might be for a more controlled and less chaotic experience like social news has been in the past. So I think that's a real opportunity for publishers.

Marcus Johnson (12:19):

Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting to me as well because when you look at that, there's 86% of Americans who sometimes get their news on digital platforms. When you zoom in on that, what Henry's saying, news sites and apps almost neck and neck, almost tied for first with search, which is 66%. That's down a bit, but news sites and apps right behind with 65. That has ticked up a bit. Then finding news on social media is about 54%. So little ways behind that. That's up a touch. And then those turning to podcasts for news, 27%. And interestingly, podcasts saw the largest gain up five points, which surprised me.

Rahul Chadha (12:57):

I think the thing that jumped out to me even about those numbers you just cited is to me, there's a distinction between intentionality and people searching out news content. And to me, the social media one is the odd person out in that situation because I think of that more as passive news consumption. You're scrolling through your feed and it's a huge mix of, I don't know, whatever's in the pot of the stuff that you're following and whatever the algorithm decides it wants you to see.

Marcus Johnson (13:23):

Yeah.

Rahul Chadha (13:23):

And so maybe there's not as much directed intent to try to find news content.

Henry Powderly (13:30):

I totally agree. And it's the fact that social media is still prevalent, because they're there anyway and they're going to encounter news while they're scrolling through everything else versus going to search, going to a site, or loading a news app.

Marcus Johnson (13:43):

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Rahul Chadha (13:44):

I think the other thing about that data, too, is even when they're comparing traditional media to digital devices, it's not exactly a apples to apples fair comparison in my mind because you're talking about channels, meaning TV, print, media, and then you're comparing it to a digital device which aggregates a bunch of different types of channels like all the ones we just mentioned, search, social media platforms, or a news app. So I don't think anybody should be really surprised when you think about how much time people are spending with their smartphones these days, and that spans generations.

Marcus Johnson (14:15):

Yeah.

Rahul Chadha (14:15):

But the one other thing, actually, that jumped out to me about those consumption patterns was the generational differences and how just still dramatic they are. I think it was something around 85% of those ages 18 to 29 preferred getting their news from a digital device, and that compared with about 45% of those ages 50 to 64. So we're still talking about people who are pre-retired, in the workforce likely. That's a 40% gap. So I think even trying to describe how these consumption patterns work in the US as a monolith is probably misleading. There's so many differences, I think, generationally speaking that it's hard to make any grand conclusions.

Marcus Johnson (14:52):

Yeah. I was looking at the age differences in social media use, and I noticed that Americans under 50 use social media for news quite a lot. Close to 40% of them regularly consume news across multiple social platforms. Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, et cetera. For people over 50, that number was 10%, so a huge drop off once you got past that 50 years old mark.

(15:22):

What else about social media, gents, did you find interesting in terms of news consumption? Because when we zoom in on news consumption habits on social media, Pew found just over half of US adults, 54%, said they at least sometimes get their news there. That's up a fraction from 2020. Henry, what jumped out to you about how news consumption habits have changed on social media in particular?

Henry Powderly (15:44):

Well, I mean they did also say that number of US adults, a percentage that prefer social media for news grew from 12% to 18%. So obviously, we might talk about it being passive, and I think that the downsides of news and social media environment is known, but it still is by and large a comfortable place for people to get their information. And maybe it's just the built-in trust that develops with receiving news from these curated communities that they're building on their social networks that's contributing to it, or just it's a byproduct of how much attention continues to flow into this medium.

(16:21):

One of the things that I found interesting also is the percentage of people who preferred search for news went down. And if you looked at the Pew data, they swap positions there. And I think the challenges with search have been talked about a lot right now. Google's results are very ad-heavy. Its past few algorithm updates had started to favor user content and Reddit a lot more than other sources, and I think people are starting to see challenges with Google as a primary platform for getting news.

Marcus Johnson (16:54):

Yeah. Something else that jumped out to me on the social media side of things was TikTok. They saw the largest gains in terms of which social platform Americans said they regularly get news on. It went from 3% to 17% since 2020. TikTok went from ninth place in terms of where people regularly get their news, tied with WhatsApp for ninth, to fourth place in the last couple of years behind only Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. That's when you look at the US population as your base. When you look at users of each platform, TikTok is second only to X, or Twitter. So if you look at Twitter users who get then use on Twitter or TikTok users who get their news on TikTok, TikTok, Facebook users, et cetera, TikTok second, and it's up 30, three zero points, since 2020. So it's just skyrocketed into second place there.

(17:49):

And particularly among younger people, 4 in 10 Americans in their twenties roughly regularly get their news on TikTok. That's more than double the average. So I guess what that told me was that people are consuming news more and more through short video or short-form video.

Rahul Chadha (18:05):

I think the other factors to consider are just TikTok's growth over the last four years has been pretty tremendous. They've gained a lot of users. People are spending increasing amounts of time there, and I think what you're seeing too could be a reflection. I think it was the bank robber, Willie Sutton, when they asked him why he robbed banks that he said, "That's where the money is."

Henry Powderly (18:05):

Yeah.

Rahul Chadha (18:22):

I mean, I think news publishers have to start creating content on TikTok because as we talked about a little bit, Facebook has revamped their algorithm to de-emphasize news. It's not a priority for them anymore. I think it's created a lot of headaches for them in terms of content moderation, and even in some countries have passed legislation forcing them to pay fees to news publishers if they're going to link to their sites. And they're just want to get out of the game whereas TikTok, I think there's just a lot of more room for growth as an ecosystem.

(18:52):

I'm not saying that's necessarily good news for news publishers because the way the question was phrased, it doesn't mean that people are actually... the news publishers are getting a lot of referral traffic, meaning people aren't clicking links through on TikTok to get to a news publisher's website or app or something. They're just seeing the news there. But I think they're caught between a rock and a hard place where it's like, "What other choice do they have?" They have to try to be where the people are spending time.

Marcus Johnson (19:17):

Mm-hmm. Circling back quickly to close out the episode, I wanted to quick mention to TV and radio in terms of how people consume news there. So TV news relevance is slowly but surely falling. The share of Americans who get their news from TV at least sometimes is down four points since 2020 to 64%. The share who often get their news from TV is down seven points. And news consumption on the radio fell the most of any medium, with those getting the news on radio at least some of the time down eight points since 2020 to 42%.

(19:53):

I want to end with Jim Waterson of the British newspaper, The Guardian, because I think he laid out some of the main ways news consumption is changing. We've touched on some of them, but I think he laid these out very articulately, saying that there are several trends that are clear. One, voters are seeing less political content on their social media feeds. Two, conversations about politics are instead taking place in private chat groups. Three, traditional news outlets are less prominent in their lives. Four, younger folks don't feel the need to brush up on a broader news agenda, caring more about certain key issues they deem directly relevant to their lives like the war in Gaza, gender issues, housing, things like that. And five, influencers have an ever greater role in shaping political opinions.

(20:39):

That's all we've got time for. Great little summary to the end of our episode. Thank you so much to my guests as always. Thank you to Henry.

Henry Powderly (20:44):

Thanks, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (20:45):

Thank you to Rahul.

Rahul Chadha (20:45):

Cheers. Thanks, friend.

Marcus Johnson (20:47):

Yes indeed. Thank you to Victoria. She edits the show. Stuart runs the team, and Sophie does our social media. Thanks to everyone for listening in to the Behind the Numbers Daily, an eMarketer podcast. Made possible by TikTok. Tomorrow, you can of course hang out with Sara Lebow, host of the Reimagining Retail Show, as she speaks with Carina Perkins and Blake Droesch all about AI's biggest impacts on retail.