KD Consulting MR Vacancies



News on Online News from BMRB
17/1/01



It appears that the British public are increasingly going online to catch the news. This is the conclusion of the latest findings from the BMRB Access Online Panel research into new media usage.

According to the recently released data, two-thirds of the 13.2 million adults who use the Internet once a week or more are keeping up-to-date through their computers. To do this, the news-hungry surfers are visiting broadcasters’ web sites, newspaper brands and ISPs as their main sources of information. This trend reflects the old world news bias of men being keener to read news than women. The research shows that online news attracts 72% of male active Internet users, compared to only 56% of women.

BMRB’s own analysis provides further interesting insights:


  • Using news online online is driven by the desire for "as it happens" news.
  • The reasons for accessing news online differ according to whether users are at home or work.
  • At work, users show a bias towards wanting breaking news.
  • At home, users show a bias towards wanting in-depth information.
Media usage in conjunction with the old news favourites of print and broadcast is also assessed in BMRB's panel. Findings here indicate that some cannibalisation between media is occurring. In this sense, the key findings include the facts that:
  • Only 7% of active net users (or approx. 1 million adults) say that they have stopped reading a printed title now they are online.
  • Around 3% claim that they have stopped reading a printed title now they read an online version of a competitor.
  • Heavier Internet users are more likely than others to replace their off-line print media with online services.
  • As more Internet users evolve into ‘active’ users, this replacement effect will probably become more apparent.
The data above was collected using BMRB’s new Access Online Panel, a panel of 567 weekly Internet users, during November 2000. The sample was weighted to match the profile collected on BMRB’s Internet Monitor. The online questionnaire stayed up for a week whilst respondents completed it.