As the ABC is overtaken by Seven News and news.com.au, more bad news about news avoidance
Welcome to a midweek update from Unmade.
Today: Digesting the annual Digital News Report where there are more reasons to be concerned about the business model of journalism. And further down, ARN Media pushes back past Southern Cross Austereo on the Unmade Index.
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No avoiding the bad news
I have my own particular form of news avoidance.
When it comes to reading content like the annual Digital News Report, my heart lurches every time. Not because audiences are changing from the platforms of the past to new platforms - that would merely be progress - but because they seem to be turning away from news altogether.
The ongoing trend is always towards lower public trust in news (this year, only 43% of Australians say they trust it), more deliberate avoidance of the news (69% say they avoid it at least some of the time), and less news consumption overall.
We’ll get back to that shortly, but also to flag a couple of headlines I’ll be sharing below the paywall. First, the ABC has been overtaken by Seven News for most watched news broadcaster. And ABC News Online has been overtaken as the most read online outlet. Yikes.