News consumers regularly use aggregators and mobile applications

Mobiles Republic recently released findings from its 2013 survey of news-reading habits. Tablet news consumption has more than doubled: 30% of tablet users rely on their devices several times a day to check the latest news, in contrast to just 12% a year ago. The most important criteria for consumers of mobile news are: that news is accurate, free, fresh and multi-sourced. Using such social media outlets as Facebook and Twitter for news updates continues to rise.

Survey Monkey surveyed 8,000 users of the Mobiles Republic app, on behalf of Mobiles Republic. The mobile survey was fielded in June 2013. The survey results were not weighted. Based on a Researchscape assessment of the questionnaire and methodology, this survey is only slightly likely to be representative of consumers in general: the results should be considered qualitative or directional in nature.

News aggregators are the most popular type of website and application for getting news: 74% of respondents said they use aggregators intensively, up from 33% a year ago. Intensive use of branded news applications (such as leading national dailies) declined from 60% to 40% over the same period.

Mobile applications are used by 88% of respondents to check the news at least several times a week; however, it should be noted that this was an in-app survey administered in a news application. The next most popular methods of getting news are TV, with 78% of respondents watching news at least multiple times a week on TV, and PC, with 68% of respondents regularly checking news on their computer. A separate survey on teenagers and news consumption by StageofLife.com found that 51% of teens get their news from network TV.

Although consumers still use traditional methods to get news, they spend much less time using them: 87% of respondents read magazines for less than 30 minutes a day and 80% spend less than half an hour reading the newspaper. By comparison, 52% of respondents spend more than 30 minutes checking the news on a mobile application.

For more information on this survey, refer to Mobiles Republic Releases Key News Usage Findings; Confirms News Consumption Significantly on the Rise.

Author Notes:

Jeffrey Henning

Jeffrey Henning, IPC is a professionally certified researcher and has personally conducted over 1,400 survey research projects. Jeffrey is a member of the Insights Association and the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers. In 2012, he was the inaugural winner of the MRA’s Impact award, which “recognizes an industry professional, team or organization that has demonstrated tremendous vision, leadership, and innovation, within the past year, that has led to advances in the marketing research profession.” In 2022, the Insights Association named him an IPC Laureate. Before founding Researchscape in 2012, Jeffrey co-founded Perseus Development Corporation in 1993, which introduced the first web-survey software, and Vovici in 2006, which pioneered the enterprise-feedback management category. A 35-year veteran of the research industry, he began his career as an industry analyst for an Inc. 500 research firm.