Proportion of Swiss who are ‘news deprived’ reaches record high

Both private and public media are reaching fewer and fewer people, says the 2024 Quality of Media Yearbook. Keystone / Christian Beutler

The proportion of people who are "news-deprived" in Switzerland has risen to a record 46%, while the overall quality of the media remains good, says a new study by the University of Zurich.

The yearly study, released on Monday by the Research Center for the Public Sphere and Society (fög) at the University of Zurich, also found that users of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), SWI swissinfo.ch’s parent company, often consume private media as well.

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In all, 61% of SBC users also consume private media; by comparison, 38% of people who do not consume SBC news programmes also consume private media, reports fög in the Quality of Media Yearbook. Commuter and tabloid media were also consumed more frequently across all channels by SBC users compared to non-users of the public service networks.

The same applies to the online sector. Only around 4% of all respondents consumed just SBC news online. This is significantly lower than the proportion of respondents who only use commuter and tabloid media online (26%) or only subscription media (8%).

“The public service media obviously encourage further news consumption,” said Linards Udris, deputy head of research at the fög, during a press conference. The study shows “a complementary, supplementary use” rather than a crowding out of private media. “The displacement theory [that the SBC crowds out private media outlets] does not apply,” said fög director Mark Eisenegger.

Media have a reach problem

However, both private and public media are reaching fewer and fewer people: the proportion of people who are “news-deprived” in Switzerland has risen to a record 46%. This segment of the population are most likely to get their news on social media, said Udris.

+ Traditional media continue their decline in Switzerland

Due to financial constraints, there is also a concentration of media content, the yearbook says. In regional reporting, for example, articles are increasingly being used more than once. The fög considers a further loss of diversity at local and regional level due to fewer daily news offerings to be problematic.

The fög recommends increased cooperation between public and private media to counter the tech platforms that siphon off a large proportion of online advertising. According to Eisenegger, this represents the biggest challenge for all media, both public and private.

More than half would pay nothing online

There is also a lack of willingness to pay, particularly in the online sector: 57% of respondents said they would not pay anything. A further 35% would be prepared to pay less than CHF10 ($12) per month.

+ Why are you avoiding the news?

The median price for online subscriptions is CHF18 per month. However, no statistical correlation was found between the use of certain types of media and the willingness to pay.

Men and younger people were more likely to pay for news online. And those with a strong interest in news and politics were more willing to pay for digital news services.

Good scores for quality and trust at SBC

According to fög, most respondents trust SBC news programmes, which earned seven points on a scale of up to ten, followed by newspapers Le Temps and Neue Zürcher Zeitung with 6.8 and 6.6 points, respectively. At the other end is the tabloid Blick with five points, on a par with online platforms GMX and Yahoo News.

SWI swissinfo.ch scores well

The offer of SWI swissinfo.ch was rated favourably by researchers at the University of Zurich. The platform earned 7.4 out of a maximum ten points, for the second-best rating among the 27 online media outlets assessed in the 2024 Yearbook.

On a scale of up to ten points, the fög awarded the highest quality to German-language SRF radio and television programmes, with 7.7 and 7.5 points. The news show Echo der Zeit took first place with 8.1 points, ahead of Rendez-vous with 7.9 points, while private television was on a par with online subscription newspapers at 6.4 points.

Tabloid and commuter newspapers came last with 4.6 and 5 points, respectively. However, the study expects long-term improvements in the areas of relevance and diversity as more hard news is published. This is thanks to journalistic changes that are focussing more on quality.

Scepticism regarding AI

The study also shows that the population remains sceptical of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism. Almost three-quarters of the Swiss consider the risks of AI in journalism to be high, even higher than in other areas of society, such as politics or the military.

The more AI intervenes directly in journalistic output, such as text or image production, the greater the scepticism. According to fög deputy head of research Daniel Vogler, this is probably one of the reasons why the Swiss are not prepared to use AI-generated news. However, the majority are in favour of using AI for translations, data analyses or research.

The media yearbook has been published since 2010 and, according to fög, aims to deepen discussion about the quality of the media and raise awareness of the achievements of information journalism in society. All types of media are analysed, from press, radio and television to online and social media. The basis for the statistics in the Yearbook is the yearly Digital News Report of the Reuters Institute at Oxford University.

Adapted from German with DeepL/gw

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