According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019, around 82 per cent of the Hong Kong population consumed their news online, with 75 per cent and 44 per cent of the population consuming news on television and print media. Only 17 per cent were willing to pay for online news, and 51 per cent shared news items via social media, messaging, and e-mail.
A study by the University of Hong Kong (The University of Hong Kong, 2019a, 2019b) found that around 70 per cent of Hong Kongers consume news online, and 65 per cent consume news on television. Comparing the news consumption patterns over the past two decades, there has been a continual decline in the consumption of news on television and newspapers and an increase in online consumption; the trend for radio news consumption is quite steady (see Table 1).
[supsystic-tables id=90]
According to a further study conducted by Hong Kong Baptist University (2020), 90 per cent of the population consumed news every day, but 90 per cent of the population did not pay for access to news. Education was found to be an important factor in influencing the use of different news platforms. A survey suggested that 46.5 per cent and 52.1 per cent of participants using websites or mobile apps had a tertiary education background (Wang & Wong, 2018). However, the importance of age, education, and political background is not declining: government statistics suggested that over 90 per cent of young people use social media, and the penetration rate among people aged 45 and above was 78 per cent in 2018 (Information Technology and Broadcasting, 2019). A recent study conducted by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2020) about the anti-extradition bill movement also found that age and educational background led to a difference in news consumption patterns. It suggested that people who gathered information from traditional media are more likely to be seniors, lower income, lesser educated, unemployed, or take pro-establishment stances. In contrast, people who were younger, better educated, higher income, or supporters of the pro-democracy camp tended to get their news from social media, LIHKG, and Telegram.
With only two Hong Kong newspapers being independently audited, it has been difficult to examine the loss of newspaper readership. However, Reuters Institute’s 2019 Digital News Report on Hong Kong (Chan et al., 2019) placed TVB news as the top news media outlet in terms of audience, despite controversies over its editorial independence. Apple Daily came second among online portals and third among television, radio, and print media. Yahoo! News, which purchases content from other sources, had the third-largest online news media readership in Hong Kong.
RTHK, the sole public service broadcaster, displayed the highest level of news credibility and was very popular among the public, although there were continual controversies over government interference and editorial independence. RTHK also makes audio and video podcasts available for online access and through mobile apps, which has contributed to the high penetration of podcasts in Hong Kong.
