ThinkNewsBrands, the industry body for news media, has said that the coverage of the University of Canberra’s 2024 Digital News Report has painted a "bleak picture of the Australian news industry", despite the report showing the opposite to be true.
The report shows over half of Australians (51%) are accessing news more than once a day, a 3% increase from last year.
Consumption of national newspapers remained stable, while regional and local newspapers rose.
The report also showed that the proportion of people paying for online news dropped off by only 1 percentage point to 21% and ongoing subscriptions remained stable at 11%.
By comparison, according to National Australia Bank data, 37% of Australians have cut back on a streaming service in the past three months and 33% have trimmed spending on subscriptions for magazines, apps and other goods and products.
ThinkNewsBrands CEO Vanessa Lyons said the consumption figures in the report are "really strong and show that Australians’ engagement with news is very healthy".
“The fact that payment for news has remained relatively stable in a cost-of-living crisis while we’re seeing cut backs on everything from streaming services to app subscriptions is a testament to how important news really is to Australians," she said.
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