Country and market data

Europe

United Kingdom

The UK media scene is characterised by strong public and commercial broadcasters and a competitive and outspoken national press. But both sectors are under pressure from changing audience behaviour, falling revenue, and rising costs.

Austria

The last year has been marked by several incidents indicating undue interference by politicians into news media, along with new policy measures to increase support to the industry and improve transparency over public sector advertising contracts.

Belgium

Belgium has two distinct media markets: French-speaking Wallonia and Flemish-speaking Flanders. Publishers’ pivot to digital subscriptions seems to be paying off, even if online audience growth and paying for news may have hit their peak.

Americas

United States

A string of major stories dominated headlines and drove news interest in the United States over the last year, including the war in Ukraine, the landmark Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, and the 2022 midterm elections.

Argentina

The media in Argentina are characterised by concentrated private ownership, weak public broadcasters, growing distrust in all news outlets, and decreasing interest in news among the population in the aftermath of COVID-19.

Brazil

Last year’s highly contested presidential elections, which were followed by riots in the capital, seem to have taken a toll on Brazilians’ trust in the news.

Asia-Pacific

Australia

After years of cuts, contractions and closures, Australian news businesses received millions in financial relief through commercial deals struck with Google and Meta in response to Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code. However, it hasn’t been a cure-all.

Hong Kong

Press freedom in Hong Kong continues to be steadily eroded following the enactment of the controversial National Security Law in 2020.

India

Indian media companies are facing tough times through a combination of declining interest in news, lower trust, and falling revenues. Meanwhile human rights groups say press freedoms have become increasingly threatened.

Africa

South Africa

The last year has been a challenging one for South African media, including the closing of two news sites, staff of a prominent media company not having their salaries paid in full, and high-profile legal challenges involving journalism that reflect fault lines in

Nigeria

Nigeria's media landscape remains a dynamic and constantly evolving space with state and private broadcasters, popular international brands like the BBC and CNN, and numerous print titles.

Kenya

Kenyan media are considered to be independent by regional standards, but press freedom remains fragile.

Methodological note

In this section we publish a market-based view of the findings, which includes an overview of the most important data points in terms of news. These include an overview of consumption in each market, including details of the most popular news brands – traditional and online. The pages also contain statistics about the different sources of news over time, the role of different social networks, and levels of payment for online news. Information is drawn from the 2023 Digital News Report survey using the methodology outlined here, with the exception of population and internet levels which are drawn from the latest edition of Internet World Statistics¹ and press freedom scores from Reporters Without Borders.²

Data from India, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa are representative of younger English-speakers rather than the national population. The survey was fielded in English in these markets (respondents had the option of selecting Hindi in India and Swahili in Kenya, but the majority selected English), and restricted to ages 18 to 50 in Kenya and Nigeria. In some other markets, where internet penetration is lower, our data often represent younger and more affluent groups – even if they meet other nationally representative quotas. For all these reasons, one should be cautious in comparing data points across markets where we know these limitations apply (see methodology). In a few markets we do not ask certain questions (such as on paying for news and podcasts) because we feel these could lead to misunderstandings or misleading comparisons. We have also signalled important details about samples in a short note on the country page, where relevant.

We have ordered the countries and markets by geography (Europe, Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Africa) and within each region countries are then ordered alphabetically – with the exception of UK at the start of the Europe section and the United States at the start of the Americas.

We have not published data on devices this year, because after trialling a new question we felt the data in some countries were flawed. We continue to try to provide the most accurate data possible and will reintroduce device data in 2024.

Footnotes

¹ https://www.internetworldstats.com/

² https://rsf.org/

Country and market data 2023