Amy Watson
Research expert covering news and publishing
News industry in the United Kingdom - statistics & facts
The news industry in the UK has faced considerable challenges over the past few years. Due to ever-increasing online penetration rates and consumers’ appetite for free online news content, various publishers have had to scale back print publication volumes or go out of business entirely.
Top players are fighting an uphill battle
Data on national newspapers in the UK revealed that a number of publications saw a year-over-year drop in circulation of over 10 percent between 2022 and 2023. The circulation data for regional papers are similar. Irish News and Aberdeen – Press & Journal still stand out as the top daily titles, but both newspapers have seen circulation numbers shrink in recent years. This downward trend is also mirrored in the revenues of major news publication companies such as Reach Plc and Daily Mail and General Trust Plc (DMGT).Consumers are reluctant to invest in news
Consumers spend less money on print newspapers than they used to, and even though interest in current affairs remains high, the ways in which such content is accessed have fundamentally changed.The digital wave is leaving an imprint on UK news media
The UK’s news industry has been heavily impacted by the advances of social media and consumers’ growing demand for online content. Staying up to date with the latest developments from around the world is now easier than ever, and thanks to 24-hour news cycles and instant pop-up notifications, print newspapers are rapidly losing their appeal and relevance. While some smaller publications have yet to embrace the digital future, others have long since offered their content via web editions to maintain relevance and combat subscriber loss. The UK’s leading English-language news websites tend to draw in between 10 and 40 million visitors per month. This shift towards online news reporting has not gone unnoticed by advertisers either. While total news brand advertising spending in the UK has declined for years, investments in digital news outlets continue to flourish.
