In February 2025, the BBC had a total of **** million monthly visits in the United Kingdom, according to the results of data designed to be nationally representative taken from ** thousand people across ** thousand devices measuring website and app usage. Mail Online followed with **** million visits, and then The Sun with **** million. Digital native site Money Saving Expert also made the top 20 ranking with just under ** million visits.

In 2024, the leading news source which respondents to a survey in the United Kingdom reported using the most was BBC One, with ** percent of participants aged 16 or older saying that this was the source they used for news nowadays. This was ** percentage points lower than in 2018, though still higher than that of ITV and Facebook. One to watch in the years to come will be TikTok, with only *** percent reporting to use it for news in 2020, a figure which had jumped to ** percent in 2023.

BBC News online was by far the most popular news brand in the United Kingdom, with ** percent of respondents stated that they accessed it for news information every week as of February 2024. The Guardian online, Sky News online, and Mail Online were among the other leading news brands as of early 2024, with The Guardian reaching ** percent of users weekly, and both Sky News and Mail Online achieving ** percent weekly penetration.

According to data from February 2025, Facebook was the most popular social network for news access in the United Kingdom, with ** percent of respondents using the service. YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) ranked second and third, with ** and ** percent of users respectively using the networks for news content.

In the United Kingdom in 2025, nearly half of respondents reported that they watched news on television in the last week. However, the most popular way to access news content was online, with 73 percent of respondents in 2024 accessing news content either through news websites or elsewhere on the internet.

Any internet was the most used platform for news consumption in the United Kingdom among all nations in 2024. However, television was also a very popular choice and could soon overtake internet as the main news source. Meanwhile, social media was more popular in Scotland and England than in Wales or Northern Ireland. Where do TV audiences get their news? BBC One remained the most popular TV news channel in the UK that year, with an audience reach of ** percent. BBC One, which is part of the television service portfolio of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), has held the lion’s share of TV news watching hours in the UK for over a decade. Online news platforms are stealing the show While television remains the leading news source among adults, younger audiences primarily turn to the internet for news consumption. According to a recent survey, almost ** percent of UK news consumers between the ages of 18 to 24 considered the internet their leading news platform, and as of 2020, roughly ** percent of the UK population read or downloaded news content online. Among those who got their news coverage from online sources, BBC News stood out as the leading online news brand accessed in the UK that year.

TheGuardian.com, the online edition of the British daily newspaper The Guardian, has experienced a decrease in the number of its website visitors in recent years, with just over ************* visitors in September 2017. From October 2016 to September 2017, approximately ************ people visited The Guardian news website via a mobile device.

Digital news consumption

Online newspaper and magazine consumption increased significantly over the last decade in the United Kingdom (UK). In 2018, nearly 70 percent of individuals were either reading or downloading online news, newspapers or magazines in the UK compared to ** percent in 2007. As of February 2019, BBC News online was by far the most popular news brand in the UK, followed by Mail online and Guardian online.

News on social media

In 2018, the number of social media interactions from UK news brand articles stood at roughly **********. With nearly ********** users across the UK by the end of 2019, Facebook had the highest penetration rate for news consumption that year, at ** percent.

According to a 2018 survey, the main difference in the way that different generations in the United Kingdom (UK) find news stories online, is that younger generations like Gen Z and Millennials are more likely to find news via social media. Whereas older generations, Baby Boomers for example, are more likely to look for news by visiting specific websites.

News audiences in Norway were the most likely to pay for online news according to a global study on paid digital news content consumption, with 42 percent having paid for news online in the last year. Ranked second was Sweden, followed by Switzerland, Australia, and Austria. With the changing media landscape leading to more and more consumers turning to digital sources to access the news, publishers are adding paywalls on their sites. However, not all consumers are equally inclined to pay for digital news content. Italy and UK news audiences for example were substantially less likely to pay for online news than U.S. consumers. Why pay for online news? The reasons for paying for news are diverse and dependent on various factors. The digitalization of news allows stories to be shared and disseminated on a global scale, but not all sources are reliable or credible. For consumers, it is often difficult to identify trustworthy news sources, and as such which sources they would happily pay for. Consumers may also be reluctant to pay for news because of the sheer amount of free content online. Whilst the availability of free content made news more accessible, at the same time this impacts journalists and publishers. In Finland for example, this has led to a correlated decrease in sales of printed content. As traditional print publications move online, there is also a growing reliance on advertising to generate revenue. Users are encouraged to pay for access to restricted material as publishers limit content to members only. Consumer’s willingness to pay was seen to be dependent on content, with Americans happier to pay for news than features or e-magazines. Impact of the coronavirus With the coronavirus pandemic forcing millions across the globe to stay at home, having access to digital news has never been more crucial, accordingly an increase of subscribers paying for premium news content could be expected. However the health crisis has also led to economic hardship for many, which may instead lead to people cutting out luxuries such as paid news subscriptions. In the UK for example, 2020 saw a decrease in people paying for news content compared to the previous year. With the pandemic dominating news reports, 2020 also saw audiences experience news fatigue, and after a year of news coverage saturated with coronavirus updates, consumers may feel the need to switch off entirely.

The leading newspaper in terms of overall reach in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020 was The Sun. The tabloid newspaper, which has been embroiled in numerous controversies over the years, had a combined reach from its print editions and website of just over 38 million from April 2019 to March 2020.

News online

The newspaper industry has had to make major readjustments to a digitalized future. Physical paper sales have been falling for years with readers being able to gain access to news on a constant and instant level online. Some brands in the UK see over 150 million unique monthly visits online. The mobile phone is now the leading way individuals consume news in the UK for almost every major brand.

The printing industry

Expenditure on newspapers in the UK based on volume has seen a decrease of about three billion British pounds during the last 10 years. Revenues from the printing of newspapers in the UK will fall to a forecasted 16.6 million U.S. dollars in 2024, down from 97 million U.S. Dollars in 2012.

This statistic ranks online news source types by reach among online news consumers in the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2014. In 2013, social media sources, like Facebook and Twitter, were used for news by ** percent of UK adults who used the internet to consume news. Search engines, like Google and Yahoo!, were used for news by ** percent of respondents in 2014.

The national news brand with the highest reported drop circulation in the United Kingdom was Sunday People, with a circulation decrease of around ***percent. The leading national paper by circulation, the Daily Mail, saw a drop of nearly ******percent. Online newspaper readership The newspaper industry is having to make major readjustments to accommodate digital readership. Physical paper sales have been falling as consumers increasingly turn to online news outlets. Data on the monthly reach of national newspapers revealed that smartphones are the most popular platform for newspaper consumption across all major news brands, though free paper Metro had the highest print reach thanks to its regular distribution across London. Journalists Despite the fall in newspaper circulation, the number of journalists in the UK is climbing. In 2020, over *** thousand journalists and newspaper and periodical editors were employed in the United Kingdom, the highest number recorded since 2010.

There is no denying that the way people consume newspapers and magazines has changed. As of 2020, more than two thirds of individuals in Great Britain were either reading or downloading online news, newspapers or magazines. This was more than three times the share of online readers as compared to 2007. The share of UK online readers was higher than the European Union (EU 28) average. As of February 2019, BBC News online had the highest share of readers in the UK, with the Guardian and Mail Online coming in as second and third choice.

How do people like their news?

According to an Ofcom study, both television and the internet were more likely to be a source of news over newspapers across all UK countries. In fact, in Northern Ireland, individuals were more likely to receive news via word of mouth rather than through a physical newspaper or printed magazine.

Social media and news

In some European countries, approximately half of news consumers used Facebook as a source of news, while in the UK, it was approximately one quarter of news consumers. In the UK, Facebook was the leading social media network as a source for news, followed by Twitter and YouTube.

Five newspaper publishing companies controlled over ** percent of the national online news reach in the United Kingdom as of July 2023, an investigation found. Publisher Reach held the biggest share with ** percent, and DMG Media followed in second position with ten percent. News UK and the BBC both accounted for a share of ***** percent respectively, while Lebdev reached ***** percent.

During a survey from 2020, it was found that Facebook was the most popular social media source to access news among men in the United Kingdom, with a penetration of ** percent, while only ***** percent of men used Instagram for this purpose.

The TV news channel with the highest reach in the United Kingdom in 2019 was BBC News. With **** million viewers reached in the *********************, BBC News outperformed Sky News by *** million. Behind these two main news channels came Sky Sports News, which had a reach of *** million in the same period.

TV news - the big picture

News was only the sixth most popular television genre in the UK in 2019, with entertainment taking the top spot. This could explain why out of the leading 20 TV channels in terms of reach in the UK in 2019, none of them were dedicated to news.

Online news brands

With so much news being consumed online these days, it is also worth finding out what the leading online news brands are in the UK. As of February 2019, BBC News online was accessed by ** percent of all respondents in an online survey.

In 2023, Amazon (UK) Ltd was the largest advertiser in news brands in the United Kingdom (UK), having spent roughly *** million British pounds on advertising in newspapers, both paper and online editions.

As of February 2022, phones were the most popular device with which people in the United Kingdom accessed online news content with. About ** percent of respondents accessed news online using their phone, ** percent via desktop, and ** percent on tablets.

As of January 2023, *************** was the biggest web publisher on Facebook, gathering over ** million Facebook interactions, including likes, shares and comments on content posted. Second on the list was ************ with **** million interactions.

According to a 2020 survey run in the United Kingdom (UK), Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp was the most popular social media platform among those aged 26 to 35. Out of all the respondents, 85 percent had an account on the social networking site. Facebook came in second place, with 80 percent of respondents claiming they used the service while YouTube and Instagram featured third and fourth respectively.

Facebook as a leading digital ad platform

Facebook continues to dominate the social media market in the UK, its penetration rate having been on the rise since 2015. By 2022, the social media platform’s share of monthly active users is forecast to reach 62.44 percent of the United Kingdom’s population. As a platform with such widespread reach not just within the UK but around the world, Facebook is perfectly poised to become a leading online advertising tool. In fact, the social network giant brought in nearly 23 percent of all digital advertising revenue in the United Kingdom in 2018, the highest among all social media platforms. This is forecasted to reach 28 percent by 2021, narrowing the gap with market leader Google.

The news and social media

Facebook remains, albeit to a lesser extent, a news source for nearly 30 percent in the United Kingdom according to figures until 2018. Although this number is significantly lower than in countries such as Italy and Spain where around half of the surveyed population turned to Facebook for news, it is no small figure and one would think that such numbers would reflect a positive perception of social media as a news source. A 2019 survey demonstrated however, that this was not the case with social media ranking lowest in terms of level of trust against other sources such as traditional media, online media, and owned media.