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What is happening to television news?

DOI: 10.60625/risj-6f10-zr71

Traditional television viewing is falling, and the rapid rise of online video viewing continues.

If television news providers fail to respond to these profound shifts in how people use media, they risk eventually becoming irrelevant, a new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford warns.“There are no reasons to believe that a generation that has grown up with and enjoys digital, on-demand, social and mobile video viewing across a range of connected devices will come to prefer live, linear, scheduled programming tied to a single device just because they grow older,” says Dr Nielsen, Director of Research at the Reuters Institute.

“This raises wider questions about how sustainable the broad public interest role broadcast news has played in many countries over the last 60 years is.” What's the solution? And what action should television news providers be taking to evolve effectively in a digital age? A new report by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Richard Sambrook explores what is happening to television news.

Published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism with the support of the Google and the Digital News Initiative.

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Meet the authors

Prof. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is a Professor at the Department of Communication of the University of Copenhagen and a Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Before leaving Oxford in 2024, he worked at the Institute,... Read more about Prof. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Richard Sambrook

Richard Sambrook is a Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute and Professor of Journalism, Deputy Head of School and Director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University. He was Director of the BBC's Global News division, responsible... Read more about Richard Sambrook