“Television has dominated people’s news habits since the ’60s, and it still commands really high trust,” said Yih-Choung Teh, Ofcom’s group director for strategy and research, in a statement. “But we’re witnessing a generational shift to online news, which is often seen as less reliable — together with growing fears about misinformation and deepfake content. Ofcom wants to secure high-quality news for the next generation, so we’re kicking off a review of the public service media that help underpin the U.K.’s democracy and public debate.”
Ofcom has been running annual surveys on news consumption since 2017. This year it canvassed over 5,000 adults both online and face-to-face.