According to the latest Digital news Report from the Reuters Institute, HuffPost and BuzzFeed are posing threat to Mainstream online news channels such as the BBC and CNN as they are finding their positions under increasing threat from a new breed of ‘digital born’ outlets such as Vice, The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.
The report found that the proportion of people watching traditional broadcast news had dropped from 69% to 62% over the past two years, a trend which is even more pronounced in people under 45, where the comparable figures are 56% and 46%.
With newspapers also continuing to endure significant declines it has been left to social media and the internet to pick up the slack.
The report noted: “We see an intensifying battle for global audiences online involving new players like The Huffington Post and Buzzfeed, expanding global newspapers like the Guardian and New York Times and old stalwarts including the BBC and CNN.”
According to the research Yahoo is the most frequently visited online news brand at 18 per cent, thanks to a strong showing in Japan, followed by the Huffington Post on 10 per cent. The BBC and MSN were left to fight it out for first place on 8 per cent each.
In the UK specifically the BBC topped the scales with 48 per cent of those surveyed accessing BBC News online; this was followed by the Daily Mail on 14 per cent while HuffPost and the Guardian duked it out on 12 per cent apiece.
