Broadcast television has long been a popular format for audiences wanting to know about – and see – the biggest news stories of the day. But changes in technology and audience habits have been happening for some time now, altering the video news landscape. This year, we take a deeper dive into online news video, looking at where consumption is (and isn’t) happening. The picture may not be of much solace to traditional broadcasters, who are seeing viewership drift away. But there are signs of life, particularly on the social media and video networks which have shaped most this space: YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Audiences on these platforms do seem to have an appetite for consuming news, but in different ways.
The landscape of online news video consumption
Looking at the overall landscape of online news video, there are two important observations to make. The first point is that the largest amount of online news video consumption is happening primarily outside of Europe, though the clear majority of Europeans (60%) are still also consuming online news on social media or video networks weekly. The second point is that this consumption is happening on third-party platforms, rather than news organisations’ own websites or apps.
The following chart shows the proportion of people in each region in our survey who say they consume news videos weekly on each platform. The heaviest news video consumption is happening in Africa, Latin America, and South-East Asia, but even in Europe and North America there is widespread adoption. The regional differences are interesting, with half of people surveyed in Africa (54%) and Asia (47%) consuming news videos on YouTube, compared to just a quarter (24%) in Europe. These differences are replicated across other social media platforms and video networks, with perhaps the main exception being news organisations’ own websites and apps. Here, a similar proportion of people (around a fifth) in Latin America, North America, and Europe say they consume news videos on publisher sites weekly, with this rising to a quarter (26%) in Asia and a third (32%) in Africa.
Countries with the highest levels of online news video consumption include Thailand, Indonesia, Peru, and South Africa, where weekly use is widespread (>80%). Countries with the lowest rates of use include Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, where weekly use of online news video on any platform sits around 50%. Yet, even in these markets, there has been growth in usage, with the UK, for instance, seeing an increase from 40% in 2021.
The high rate of online news video consumption in countries like Thailand is, in part, explained by these markets having younger populations, high mobile phone usage, heavy platform use, and cheap data. Platform design also feeds into the picture, with auto-play video features likely to boost usage in these very social-first markets.
Indeed, the countries with the highest rates of online news video usage are very much social-first news markets, while those with the lowest rates tend to be markets with lower social media use for news and historically strong upmarket newspaper brands and public service media (PSM). The UK is perhaps the best example of this, where social media use for news is comparatively lower than in other markets (40% weekly, compared to, for example, 69% in Peru) and where the BBC has very high reach.
The second main observation about the online news video landscape is that growth in consumption is happening on social media and video networks, rather than on publisher websites or apps. It should be acknowledged that news video consumption on social media platforms and video networks will include content from mainstream news publishers, including public service broadcasters, newspapers, and digital-first outlets. But we cannot estimate with our data how much traffic is going to these outlets compared to other kinds of sources. Still, if news videos from mainstream news organisations are being watched, that consumption is likely happening somewhere other than that publisher’s own website or app.
The following chart shows the proportion of people across all our markets who said they consumed online news video on each platform in the last week in 2023 and in 2026. What we can see is that, even over this short period, growth in online news video consumption can be seen on TikTok (+7pp) and Instagram (+5pp), but use on publisher websites is in decline (-5pp). This decline in online video consumption on news publisher websites sits alongside the decline in broadcast TV news usage across all age groups over the last decade.
In terms of platforms, the data suggest that Facebook (+3pp) and YouTube (+2pp) have also seen small growth in reach. Video is now one of the main competitive drivers between the platforms, evidenced, in part, by the fact that Facebook has this year started courting influencers in an attempt to better challenge the popularity of TikTok.1
A tale of three platforms: YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok
Consumption of online news video does not look the same across platforms. Most – if not all – social media platforms now offer video content in some form. But a video-first approach has not always been the core ethos of platforms: Facebook began as a way for people to connect with friends, sharing pictures and status updates; Twitter was the text-based social network; and Instagram was a way for people to share photos. Two platforms, however, explicitly focused on video as their core feature: YouTube (est. 2005) and TikTok (est. 2017). We focus on these two for that reason, as well as the clear contrast they provide. Instagram (est. 2010) is also included as an illustrative example of platform differences, pointing to similarities with TikTok rather than YouTube. Instagram has seen a strong pivot to video, where there is growth (as we can see in our data).
The differences in how these platforms are used for news video consumption are striking. The following chart shows the proportion of people in different age groups across all our markets who use each platform for news video consumption weekly. Almost the same proportion of people in all age groups (around a third) say they use YouTube weekly for online news videos. The contrast with TikTok and Instagram is immense: almost four in ten people aged 18–24 say they use TikTok weekly for news videos (it is 36% for Instagram), compared to just 12% of over 55s (15% for Instagram). The comparison with people 25–54 is further striking, with large gaps in usage on TikTok and Instagram for news even among this demographic when compared to those under 25.
This contrast perhaps says something about the maturity of YouTube as a platform, with many people treating it as a video streamer akin to the likes of Netflix. In fact, this is to some extent how Netflix and YouTube as companies see the situation, with YouTube being seen more as a competitor to Netflix than to Facebook or X.2
TikTok, on the other hand, is a younger platform with a younger user profile. Over half (53%) of 18–24s in our survey use TikTok for any purpose, compared to under a quarter (23%) of over 55s. TikTok stands out as a platform among the youngest demographics. Instagram similarly skews younger, with two-thirds (67%) of 18–24s using it weekly for any purpose, compared to 39% of people aged 55+. It is then, perhaps, no surprise that consumers of news videos on these platforms skew young. That skew is also driven by very high smartphone usage among the youngest demographic in our survey.
The rise of TikTok since 2017 is perhaps the main social media story of the last decade. It is also the story of a video format that has shaped how people think of online content. Short-form videos as a popular format are not new – many might remember the short-lived of Vine (2013–17). But the short-form vertical video was arguably perfected on TikTok, to the point where other platforms created their own features to compete (Instagram with Reels and YouTube with Shorts).
Short-form videos are no doubt popular, but with the exponential rise of short-form video has come a perception that what most (young) people are consuming is only short-form video. Do people – especially younger people – even have an appetite for longer videos? The answer is yes, they do. But it depends on the platform. The following chart shows the length of news videos that users of each platform say they watch – across all age groups. Again, the differences between YouTube and TikTok/Instagram are clear.
It might come as no surprise that the majority of news video watchers on TikTok (55%) say they are watching short videos under 2 minutes. The platform was originally designed entirely around short-form videos, though the maximum length of videos allowed has gradually increased. Even so, the appetite for watching longer news videos on TikTok is not yet apparent, with the gap between videos of 2–5 minutes (43%) and 6–20 minutes (18%) being stark. The same goes for Instagram.
However, on YouTube, the appetite for longer content is there. Almost a quarter (23%) of YouTube news video watchers say they are watching videos longer than 20 minutes weekly. More than a third (35%) are watching videos of 6–20 minutes in length. This contrast with TikTok and Instagram reflects the history of YouTube as a platform, where longer videos have been more of the company’s focus (Shorts weren’t rolled out worldwide until 2021).
Interestingly, longer news videos are relatively more popular among younger people than older people. Just over half (52%) of 18–24s watching news videos on YouTube say they watch longer news videos (over 5 minutes) weekly, compared to 41% of over 55s. Older people on YouTube are actually more likely than younger people to be watching short news videos (69% of over-55 YouTube users, compared to 60% of 18–24s, watching news videos under 6 minutes). This may be driven, in part, by younger people’s greater preference for watching news videos (compared to reading or listening to news), as we highlighted in previous Digital News Reports.3
YouTube is also seen more as a place to intentionally consume news videos, compared to the other two platforms. For many people consuming news on social media, the act is often unintentional – you might consume news on TikTok or Instagram, for instance, because it just happens to come up in the feed. We call this incidental news consumption because it happens when people are on social media platforms for entirely different reasons than to see news. When we ask a simple question about this type of behaviour, we again see a contrast across platforms.
Across all our markets, the majority (54%) of news users on TikTok say they are mostly consuming news on the platform when they are there for other reasons. A similar proportion say this about Instagram (55%). Compare this to YouTube, where the figures are essentially flipped: the majority (55%) of YouTube news consumers say they are intentionally getting news there, compared to 40% who say they are passively getting news on the platform. That intentional use of YouTube for news is also slightly higher among those aged 18–24 (58% see it as a useful way to get news), compared to those aged 55+ (49%).
Overall, our data indicate that people interact with news videos on YouTube differently to the way they interact with news videos on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. UK regulator Ofcom says people in the UK spend, on average, around 51 minutes a day on YouTube.4 This compares to 28 minutes per day spent on TikTok and 20 minutes on Instagram. Given that the UK is at the tail end of social media video use in our data, time spent on each platform in markets in Asia and Africa is likely to be much longer, illustrating just how popular these platforms are.
Smart TVs and the shift in how people interact with a medium
The popularity of YouTube as a platform across countries and age groups to intentionally get news – and the appetite people have for watching longer news videos on the platform – helps to underscore a shift that has been happening for many years, but which has now crystallised into a defined change in behaviour: how people interact with their TVs as a device. Internet-connected smart TVs, the rise of on-demand streaming platforms like Netflix, and the habits of younger people have fundamentally altered this landscape.
In this year’s survey, we wanted to understand how people interact with their smart TVs by asking a simple question: when watching news on your smart TV, do you do that via video apps like YouTube?
A similar proportion of people across younger age groups say they do this, with around 70% of smart TV news users in the 18–24 (70%), 25–34 (71%), and 35–44 (67%) demographics watching via video apps. The proportion of respondents using smart TVs for news in this way drops down to 58% for people aged 45–54 and 44% for people aged 55+.
These figures suggest a generational divide: older audiences are less likely to use video apps for news on smart TVs, despite having similar access to the technology. For context, 70% of 18–24s say they use a smart TV for any purpose, compared with 66% of those aged 55+, suggesting that the difference in usage is driven less by access and more by viewing preferences. Many older people continue to favour linear broadcast TV news over streaming.
These differences are likely explained, in part, by generational socialisation: older people who grew up watching linear broadcast television have kept the habit, compared to younger people who have grown up in a world of the internet, smartphones, and smart TVs. For the youngest respondents in our survey, this is the only world they have ever known, so their habits have been shaped by this environment. In many ways, younger people interact with TVs in a similar way to how they interact with smartphones: the devices are internet-connected, with media consumption happening via apps.
Conclusion: what’s the takeaway for the news industry?
Overall, in our research more broadly, we find that fewer people each year are watching broadcast television. Social media and video networks are the main way people interact with news videos. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are growing fast, while YouTube remains widely popular for video news, as does Facebook. The use of publishers’ own websites or apps for online news video is in decline.
The story is one we have been tracking for many years now: the ever-increasing platformisation of news, with more and more audience time and attention going to the likes of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. News publishers have not always been able to keep up in this online world filled with videos from content creators, influencers, podcasters, and alternative media start-ups. These actors are well-placed to capitalise on social media trends, keeping up to date with the demands of the algorithm. What will happen to publishers in this context?
Our research shows how immensely popular social media and video networks are with younger people – and especially younger people in the Global South. Short-form video has been pushed for years by the likes of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, seemingly to great effect. But our findings also indicate there are opportunities on platforms like YouTube, which people see as a destination for news and where people do have an appetite to watch longer content. It is also perhaps worth underlining again that this appetite for longer content on YouTube is more apparent among the youngest demographics in our survey.
Another point of interest is the fact that people are not abandoning the TV as a device – they are just interacting with it differently now. More people continue to drift away from linear broadcast television in favour of on-demand video provided via smart TV apps. This is a highly competitive space, and the leaders have, so far, largely been commercial entertainment companies like Netflix and Disney+. How news publisher apps (on smart TVs) fit into this ecosystem is an interesting question well worth grappling with.
Online video is still an evolving format. Podcasts are increasingly video-first, and the appearance of podcasts on Netflix signals something about the developing nature of this format,5 not to mention Netflix’s concerns about YouTube as a competitor. Vertical short-form videos are very popular, but they are not the only type of video people consume. For news publishers, our findings indicate there are both immense challenges, but also opportunities if ways can be found to cut through the noise.
Footnotes
1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c895wwp3kqlo
2 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/12/business/media/youtube-netflix-streaming.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c8eg1wx7j81o
3 https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/dnr-executive-summary
4 https://www.ofcom.org.uk/media-use-and-attitudes/online-habits/from-apps-to-ai-search-how-the-uk-goes-online-in-2025