Results of an October survey of more than 900 radio listeners ages 18 or over shows that 71% watch the news, and of those, nearly three-fourths (73%) do so via streaming, putting it ahead of linear TV or social media sources.
The study, conducted by media research firm Harker Bos Group, also finds YouTube to be a significant news source, with 39% of listeners who watch the news saying they watch clips on YouTube, translating to 28% of all radio listeners watching news on the website.
The choice of streaming over cable/satellite TV by a large margin (73%, vs. 57%) is certainly notable, as is the finding that even watching news clips on social media such as Facebook or X outscores linear. Among the sample of YouTube news watchers, Harker Bos found that 59% of them subscribe to a local TV news affiliate, translating to 17% of all radio listeners.
“The results demonstrate that a diverse array of news delivery technologies are used to consume video news, as well as emergent trends such as the increasing primacy of streaming over cable,” Harker Bos Group's Sean Bos says. “We also observe the growing market saturation of YouTube in the news media realm among radio listeners.”