Online platforms have now overtaken TV for the first time as the most popular resource for news among adult consumers, at 71% versus 70%, according to new research from U.K. communications regulator Ofcom.
This is a significant shift. Not only has TV dominated news for more than 60 years (a period when it overtook newspapers in popularity for news; that was the first blow for broadsheets), but also as online platforms replace broadcasters (and newspapers), the news they carry comes from a much wider set of sources. That’s both a blessing for having more viewpoints and a curse for being significantly harder to vet for accuracy — and consumers are concerned that this will only get worse with the growth of AI.