On average, only 17% of the population reads paper newspapers in Norway daily, and this is the lowest level since 1991, according to the results of the Norsk mediabarometer study in 2023, the service reported. Statistics Norway press release. on May 14 on the official web portal.
The Norwegian Media Barometer is a series of reports based on Statistics Norway’s annual survey on media use. In the survey, a representative sample of the population aged nine years and older answers questions about access and use of various media. In 2023, 3,183 people answered the questions.
Since 1991, the population’s media habits have changed. Until 2008, printed newspapers, television and radio were the most important media, but in the past 15 years, mobile phones and the Internet have gradually become the main tools for everyday media use. The results of the Norwegian Media Barometer 2023 show that the trends continue.
“The reading of paper newspapers is at its lowest level. In 1991, 84% of the population read newspapers on average daily, and in 2023 this figure was 17%.”the message said.
In addition, a decrease in online newspaper reading was also found, which has been measured since 2016. The proportion of citizens reading newspapers online has gradually decreased since 2020 and reached its lowest level in 2023. If in 2020 70% of the population read one or more online newspapers on average during the day, in 2023 59% of the population did so.
Radio has remained more stable in recent years: about half the population listens to it on a typical day. However, there are big differences between young and old. The time spent listening to the radio increases with age, a trend that is also noticeable when watching television. Approximately half of the population watches television during the day.
The vast majority of the population, 94%, connects to the Internet at least once a day on average. Among citizens under 44 years of age, almost all do so, and among people over 80 years of age, the share of such citizens increased by 12 percentage points from 2022 to 2023.
While citizens consume less news through publisher-controlled media, they increasingly consume news through social media. Using TikTok to read news has seen its biggest increase since 2022, especially among people ages 13 to 24.
Half of the population watches videos on a normal day and just under half watch streaming videos. Almost nine in ten also have access to paid streaming services. When it comes to watching shorter video clips online, such as from a computer or an app on a mobile phone, the differences between generations become greater.
Digital games remain the most popular among children aged 9 to 15: seven in 10 play them daily. Reading comics is popular both among younger people aged 9 to 15 and among people over 80 years old. Reading magazines is more common among older women. Additionally, magazine readers are more likely to be men than women and, as a rule, have a higher level of education.
As a Statistics Norway employee told NTB, just 10 years ago, more than half of Norwegian residents read one or more newspapers on a typical day.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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