How concentrated is it?
Four measures of who controls the news Britain sees — and what every one of them is blind to.
Introduction
There is no single right measure
Choosing how to measure media concentration is choosing an argument. Count mastheads and three companies dominate. Count audience and the biggest news distributor in Britain is a company that employs no journalists. Count attention and print is 5% of it. All four measures below are defensible; none is complete; and averaging them into one score would hide exactly the disagreement that matters.
Reach, not circulation
The intuitive measure of newspaper power is copies sold. It no longer works: ABC’s public audited national circulation certificates ended as most nationals withdrew from open reporting from 2020, and circulation counts copies rather than people — missing the digital audience that is now the larger part of every national title’s readership. Every figure on this page therefore comes from Ofcom’s survey: one source, one method, one fieldwork period.
How Britain gets its news
Share of all UK adults aged 16+. People use more than one platform, so these do not sum to 100.
- Online (any website, app, social media or podcast)70%
Now the most-used platform for news. Ofcom quotes 71% elsewhere in the same report using a slightly different base — the one-point gap is a base difference, not a revision.
- TV, including on-demand68%
Was the most-used platform in previous years. Falling, with a steeper decline since 2023.
- Linear broadcast TV channels only63%
Excluding on-demand. The gap between online (70%) and linear TV (63%) is statistically significant; the gap between online and all TV is not.
- Social media51%
Half of UK adults now use social media for news. Among 16–24s it is three-quarters.
- Radio38%
Steady. Radio is hard to measure precisely: Ofcom estimates the true weekly figure for hearing any news on radio could be anywhere between 32% and 87%.
- Newspapers (print and online combined)34%
Only 19% read a print newspaper for news. Of those who read newsbrands at all, 42% read print only, 43% online only, 15% both.
Scale: 0–100%. Ofcom, News Consumption in the UK: 2025 — Research findings ↗
Online overtook television. Almost all UK adults (96%) consume news in some form, and they spend an average of 61 minutes a day doing it.
Which providers reach the most people
Share of all UK adults aged 16+ using each provider for news. Meta combines Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp; Google combines Search, Google News and YouTube.
- BBC (broadcaster)67%
Across TV, radio and online. Reaches 83% of over-75s but only 52% of 16–24s.
- Meta (intermediary)39%
Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp combined. Reaches 56% of 16–24s — more than the BBC does in that age group — and 11% of over-75s.
- Google (intermediary)34%
Search, Google News and YouTube.
- ITV (broadcaster)34%
Scale: 0–100%. Ofcom, News Consumption in the UK: 2025 — Research findings ↗
The age split inside these numbers is larger than the numbers themselves. Among 16–24s, Meta reaches 56% and the BBC 52% — the intermediary is ahead. Among over-75s the BBC reaches 83% and Meta 11%. Any single national figure here is an average of two almost entirely different news environments.
Where the 61 minutes actually go
Reach counts anyone who used a source at all. Share of attention weights by how much of someone’s news diet a source actually is, which for the influence question is the more useful measure.
Modelled share of average daily news consumption across all UK adults, from Barb, RAJAR, Ipsos Iris, Comscore and Ofcom’s own survey.
- Online, via intermediaries31%
Social media, search and aggregators — news the reader did not go looking for at a masthead.
- TV31%
Including broadcaster on-demand.
- Radio18%
- Online, direct from publishers11%
Going straight to a news brand’s own website or app.
- Print5%
Five per cent of news attention. This is the number that should be in front of anyone claiming newspapers still set the agenda by volume.
- Podcasts3%
Scale: 0–100%. Ofcom, News Consumption in the UK: 2025 — Research findings ↗
5%
of UK news attention goes to print
The number that belongs in front of anyone arguing newspapers still dominate by volume.
40%
goes to the public service broadcasters
Across all media. The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 together still command two-fifths of British news attention.
Has media power moved from newspaper proprietors to platforms and algorithms? On distribution the answer is clearly yes: print now accounts for 5% of news attention, and more UK adults reach news through Meta than through any newspaper. On influence the answer is unresolved. Newspapers still set much of the daily agenda that broadcasters and social feeds then carry, and a front page can travel far beyond the people who bought the paper.
Which newspapers reach the most readers
Share of people who use ANY newsbrand for news, not share of the population. Newsbrands overall reach 34% of adults.
- Daily Mail / Mail on Sunday33%
- Guardian / Observer31%
- The Sun / Sun on Sunday23%
Scale: 0–100%. Ofcom, News Consumption in the UK: 2025 — Research findings ↗
Read the base before the number. These percentages are of newsbrand users, not of the UK population. Newsbrands as a whole reach 34% of adults, so a brand on 33% here reaches roughly one adult in nine — not one in three. Presenting the two scales together without saying so is the most common way this data is misread.
Going direct to a news website or app
Share of people who go directly to news organisations’ own websites and apps, rather than reaching news through a platform.
- BBC Online59%
- Sky News21%
- The Guardian20%
- Daily Mail14%
Down from 19% in 2024.
- LADbible11%
The highest-reaching online-exclusive source.
- HuffPost9%
Scale: 0–100%. Ofcom, News Consumption in the UK: 2025 — Research findings ↗
Four ways to measure concentration
Shown side by side rather than combined, because they disagree with each other and the disagreement is the finding.
How many national newspaper titles does one company control?
3 groups
Three companies — DMG Media, News UK and Reach — publish the large majority of UK national newspaper titles between them. If DMGT’s purchase of the Telegraph completes, one of the three would add both Telegraph titles to the Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro and the i.
What this measure misses. Counting mastheads treats the Daily Star and The Times as equal units. It says nothing about how many people read either.
Companies House register and CMA merger case file ↗How many providers reach more than a third of UK adults with news?
4 providers
Four: the BBC (67%), Meta (39%), Google (34%) and ITV (34%). Two of the four are broadcasters that commission journalism. The other two are American technology companies that commission none of it.
What this measure misses. Reach counts anyone who used a source at all. It does not distinguish a Radio 4 listener from someone who glanced at a headline in a feed.
Ofcom News Consumption Survey 2025, Figure 5 ↗Where does news attention actually go?
40% PSB
Online intermediaries and TV take 31% of news attention each. Print takes 5%. The public service broadcasters together account for 40% of all news attention in the UK.
What this measure misses. Attention is modelled, not directly observed, and combines several industry datasets with survey ratios.
Ofcom News Consumption Survey 2025, share of attention analysis (Barb, RAJAR, Ipsos Iris, Comscore) ↗How much news reaches people through a platform nobody regulates for plurality?
60% of adults
Six in ten UK adults use a social media service, search engine or news aggregator for news. None of these companies is covered by the UK media ownership rules, which apply to television, radio and newspapers.
What this measure misses. Intermediaries distribute other people’s journalism. High intermediary reach is not the same as an intermediary having editorial power — though algorithmic ranking is a form of selection.
Ofcom News Consumption Survey 2025 ↗
The platforms growing fastest are the ones users trust least
Ratings by regular users of each platform, not by the general public. Deliberately shown on a separate chart from reach: plotting the two together on a dual axis would imply a relationship that this data actually inverts.
| Platform | Accuracy | Trust | Impartiality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Print newspapersRatings among regular readers. Up from around six in ten in 2018 — the only platform where these ratings have risen. | 74% | 73% | 70% |
| TVApproximate: around seven in ten regular users. Essentially unchanged since 2018. | 70% | 70% | 70% |
| RadioApproximate: around seven in ten regular users. | 70% | 70% | 70% |
| Online sourcesApproximate: around six in ten regular users. | 60% | 60% | 60% |
| Social mediaAround four in ten. Among 65–74s only 28% rate social media highly for trust; among over-75s, 20%. | 40% | 40% | 40% |
Percentage of regular users rating each platform 7–10 on a 1–10 scale. Figures for TV, radio and online are approximate, reported by Ofcom as “around seven in ten” and “around six in ten” rather than as exact percentages. Print newspaper figures are exact. Ofcom, News Consumption in the UK: 2025 — Research findings ↗
Reach and trust run in opposite directions. The platforms growing fastest are the ones their own users rate lowest for accuracy and trust, and the platform shrinking fastest — print — is rated highest, and rising. Any argument that assumes the most-used source is the most believed source has the relationship backwards.
Next: what these outlets have actually said — endorsements, regulated impartiality and brand-level trust, kept apart.