London: Millions of young people have switched off television news bulletins, and turned instead to online sources, according to a survey of the news industry in several major markets.

The shift raises questions about the business models of broadcasters such as CNN, MSNBC and Sky News, and underlines the growing importance of Facebook and others as the gateways to content. “Not only do young people prefer online, our data show that a significant proportion are abandoning television news completely,” concluded the report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

The US saw one of the biggest shifts: the proportion of under-35s who said they watched a TV news bulletin in the past week dropped from 37 per cent in 2013 to 24 per cent in 2015.

The television industry has been largely resilient in the internet age, with audience numbers broadly stable in several key markets. However, news is the genre that has been most under threat because audiences can browse stories throughout the day rather than waiting for evening bulletins.

At the same time, technology companies are seeking to improve how they present news, with both Facebook and Apple unveiling refashioned offerings in recent weeks: the social network struck a deal with media groups, including the BBC and NBC News, to publish some of their content directly on the site, while the iPhone maker unveiled News, a redesigned portal to access news content.

Facebook was the most popular social network for news in all countries in the Reuters Institute study, except in Japan where more respondents named YouTube, the Google-owned video platform.

Nic Newman, the report’s lead author, said this also meant that technology companies had an increasing editorial responsibility. “Clearly there are editorial responsibilities, and companies like Google are taking those responsibilities and employing people who have expertise,” he said. “That’s inevitable for Facebook and Twitter.”

Messaging services were also increasingly prominent as a source of news: one-quarter of Spanish internet users said they had read, watched or discussed news on WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, in a week.

For internet users in countries including the US, Australia, Spain and Italy, researchers found that online media were now the most popular source of news. However, if non-internet users were included, television was probably still the most popular source — except in the US and possibly Denmark, Finland, and Australia.

Newman said that publishers’ ability to make money online was threatened by three factors: the strength of intermediaries, such as Google and social networks, that may not share revenues; low advertising rates, particularly on mobile devices; and the rise of adblocking software.

In the US, 47 per cent of internet users have installed adblocking software on at least one device, while in the UK the figure is 39 per cent, according to the report.

Many news organisations, including most US newspapers and the Financial Times, have introduced online subscriptions as part of their digital business model. However, the Reuters Institute report found “no discernible trend towards an increase in paid online content — or in willingness to pay”.

A willingness to pay for news was lowest in the UK, with 75 per cent of respondents saying that they would not pay “whatever the price”. Several British newspaper groups have said that the BBC, whose website provides free-to-access news, sports and entertainment, curbs their ability to charge for content online.

— Financial Times