Reuters 2025 Report Highlights, ProRata’s 500 Publisher Deals, INMA’s AI Tool, and more...
A big thanks to today’s sponsor, Affino—the all-in-one platform for running media and events businesses. Affino supports everything from CRM and content to subscriptions and ecommerce, alongside advanced AI tools like search cards, article questions, and site assistants. Whether you need the full stack or just smarter AI layers on top of your existing tools, Affino delivers flexibility, insight, and growth.
This week’s Long Read breaks down the 2025 Reuters Institute Digital News Report. It tracks how audiences are shifting to video, social platforms, and AI tools, with falling trust in traditional formats and flat subscription growth. The findings are essential reading for anyone shaping news strategy.
Let’s crack on…
Is Google about to destroy the web?
A sobering teardown of where Google wants to push us. SEO is done, now it’s GEO—Generative Engine Optimisation, created and formatted for AI-first discovery environments. Key quote: “AI Overviews include links to sources, but if AI gives you the answer you're looking for, why bother to click?” It’s not just traffic loss—it’s content cannibalism.
INMA Launches AI Answers Engine Powered By Its Archive
INMA has launched “Ask INMA”, a multilingual AI answers engine built on the global trade association’s extensive archives including 7,000+ best practices from its awards, 5,000+ blog posts, 2,000+ conference presentations, 356 videos, 153 audios, and 72 industry reports. In short, it’s got smarts. Drawback? You’ll need to be a member. P.S. USD $895/year for an individual.
Vogue, New Scientist & LinkedIn Share Their Top Social Media Strategies
At the recent PPA Festival, all three publishers shared practical insights into how they’ve succeeded on social. Bottom line? You have to be bang ‘on brand’, know your audience, look at the data, adapt, look at the data again—and offer compelling content that fits naturally into platform culture. If the New Scientist can succeed on Instagram, anyone can.
Key Themes From 2025’s Publisher Summits—Shared by Publishers
A sharp roundup of publisher sentiment from London’s recent Podcast and Newsletter Summits. Esther Kezia Thorpe’s teardown is full of insights from some of the UK’s most progressive publishers—many of whom won gongs at their respective awards’ evenings. Audience growth, monetisation experiments, personality-led formats, and platform-native thinking dominated.
Nextdoor News Becomes a Valuable Traffic Driver
With 46M weekly users, Nextdoor News allows local and regional U.S. publishers to share stories directly with residents in defined geographic areas. Unlike most social platforms, it prioritises outbound links and doesn’t claim ownership of publisher content. It’s already become a top referral source for many publishers. Heads up: An international rollout is planned.
500 Publishers Join ProRata.AI to License Content for AI Use
Man of Many, Australia’s largest men’s lifestyle site, is the latest to join over 500 global titles partnering with ProRata.AI (Gist.AI owner)—including The Atlantic, The Guardian, Vox Media, and Boston Globe. The platform calculates exactly how much each publisher contributes to an AI-generated answer and splits 50% of the revenue on a pay-per-use basis. Ethically strong, but can it generate the user volume?
ICYMI: ‘AI Eats the World’ Presentation
Benedict Evans’ yearly tech trends presentation doesn’t disappoint. “AI eats the world” is a powerful summary of where we are with AI. The standout insight? While GenAI adoption has hit 30% in two years, daily use remains stuck at 5–15%, with Evans arguing that real impact can only arise from daily habit. Evans noted on LinkedIn that, “ChatGPT is the only AI brand with consumer awareness.”
Pocket Alternatives for Bookmarking Publisher Content
With Mozilla imminently closing Pocket, the read-it-later and content discovery app, publishers are scrambling to find suitable alternatives. Here are six options to offer readers including PaperSpan, CollectRead, Wallabag, Instapaper, Raindrop and Karakeep. These apps not only replicate Pocket's functionality but improve it.
HBR Goes After C-Suite With $700 Executive Tier
Harvard Business Review has launched HBR Executive, a premium subscription priced at $700/year. It’s backed by a multi-year partnership with leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder, offering exclusive content, live sessions, and insights—shifting to high-value B2B monetisation through sponsorship. More publishers are exploring high-ticket tiers, exec-targeted content, and sponsorship integration.Email Isn’t Dead—But Your Metrics Might Be Lying
Omeda’s media sector clients sent 1.87Bn emails in Q1 2025, but the platform filtered out 58M bot clicks in just one month, a notable spike driven by link scanners and corporate firewalls. Newsletter campaigns fared best because scheduled delivery times are less likely to be flagged by security filters. Unique open rates dropped to 29%—a 7% drop from Q4 2024.
UK: ABC Revises Standards in Digital Shift
The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) has updated its reporting standards to reflect publishing's ongoing evolution, now allowing both print and digital copies to the same individual to count toward total circulation. Reports and certificates will also detail the number of individuals receiving both formats. The PPA, IPA and NMA are fully behind the changes.
AI TOOL OF THE WEEK: Suna
Free and open-source, Suna can autonomously run market research, generate SEO reports, browse code, plan content schedules, etc. Suna bills itself as an “AI employee”—for publishing teams juggling lots of tasks, it’s like employing a smart intern from Harvard. Video here. Future incoming.
PODCAST: Venture Capital, AI, & Media
90 minutes with Marc Andreessen, one of the world’s most successful tech VCs, on how modern venture capital is rapidly evolving. Packed with insights, it’s a rare, front row seat with one of the key figures shaping tech and media today. Key quote: “I never take advice”. My advice? Play it at half speed.
ON THE HORIZON: INMA Media Innovation Week
A two-day Irish media study tour is followed by INMA’s European News Media Conference, as well as a Newsroom Innovation Hub hosting practical sessions on newsroom transformation. The week includes a soirée at the Guinness Storehouse which INMA describes as ‘down to earth’ (i.e. after four pints of the black stuff, gravity takes over). 22—26 September | Dublin
Reuters Institute 2025 Digital News Report
This week’s release of the 2025 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, based on nearly 100,000 respondents across 48 markets, shows a continued shift in how people access and engage with news. Traditional formats are in long-term decline, younger audiences are moving even faster toward video and social platforms, and alternative media personalities and AI tools are starting to play larger roles in shaping news experiences.
Here’s a teardown of the report’s key findings:
Declining Reach for Traditional News Outlets
In most markets, use of television, print, and news websites continues to fall. In the United States, for the first time, more people report getting news from social and video platforms (54%) than from TV (50%) or news websites (48%). The so-called “Trump bump” from 2016, which temporarily increased engagement across formats, has not reappeared. This time, gains are seen only in social and video channels, not in traditional media.
Key takeaway: Traditional formats continue to lose share.
Rise of Influencers and Alternative News Figures
One-fifth of U.S. respondents (22%) saw or heard podcaster Joe Rogan discussing the news in the week after the inauguration. Lower levels of reach, but still significant, are reported for figures like Tucker Carlson, Redacted, Dr John Campbell, Megyn Kelly, and Krystal Ball & Saagar Enjeti. In France, 22% of under-35s watch HugoDécrypte, while in Thailand, TikTokers and YouTubers command large audiences with news-related content. These figures tend to reach younger men and those with lower trust in legacy media.
Key takeaway: Figures like Joe Rogan, HugoDécrypte, and others are now matching or exceeding the reach of traditional media, especially among young men.
AI Chatbots and Generative Tools: Small but Growing
Chatbots are emerging as a news access point. Globally, 7% use them weekly for news, and this rises to 15% among under-25s. People show some interest in AI-enhanced services like summarisation (27%) and language translation (24%). But the public remains sceptical overall, expecting AI to make news faster and cheaper but also less accurate and less trustworthy.
Key takeaway: GenAI is starting to reshape how younger audiences access information.
Platform Shifts: Video Is Dominant
Video has overtaken other formats in several key ways. Social video news consumption has risen to 65%, up from 52% in 2020. TikTok is the fastest-growing platform, now used by 17% globally for news. YouTube is used by 30% for news, with particularly strong reach in countries like India, Kenya, and the Philippines. This shift reflects broader consumer preference: 31% say they prefer to watch news, while 15% prefer to listen.
Key takeaway: Video is now the primary format in several global markets.
Changing Use of X (Formerly Twitter)
X’s overall news reach has held steady or increased in some markets, including the U.S. (+8pp). But its user base has shifted politically. In the U.S. and UK, right-leaning users have grown while progressive users have dropped off. Rival networks like Bluesky and Threads have made little headway. For many publishers, X is becoming less central—but may still be influential with specific audiences.
Key takeaway: X has not lost total reach but now serves a more right-leaning, younger male audience—shifting its role in the news ecosystem.
Trust and Verification Patterns
When verifying information, people still rely primarily on trusted news brands and public broadcasters. Despite the growing use of social and AI tools for news, traditional sources remain the top destination for checking whether content is accurate. This holds true across age groups, though younger users also use social and AI sources proportionately more.
Key takeaway: Even as usage patterns shift, people still turn to established media and public broadcasters to verify news they suspect may be false.
Subscription and Revenue Observations
The proportion of people paying for online news is unchanged at 18% across 20 wealthier countries. Norway (42%) and Sweden (31%) lead in payment rates, while the U.S. sits at 20%. In Southern and Eastern Europe, the figures are much lower—6% in Croatia and 7% in Greece and Serbia. This suggests subscription models remain flat and may have limited potential in some regions.
Key takeaway: Only 18% pay for news in richer countries, unchanged from last year—indicating plateaued subscription growth with little movement in new markets.
Key Format Preferences
Text remains the most common way to consume news (55%), but preferences are shifting. Video (31%) and audio (15%) have become more popular, especially among younger audiences. In countries like India and the Philippines, watching is already more popular than reading. Even in text-stronghold markets like Germany and the UK, young people are moving toward other formats.
Key takeaway: Video and audio formats are growing, especially with younger users—text is still preferred overall but shows generational decline.
The 2025 Digital News Report captures a media environment in dramatic flux. Publishers are operating in a world of platform resets, shifting audience habits, and emerging tools—and even where traditional models still carry weight in trust and verification, new behaviours are being shaped by video, AI, and creators. The full report can be downloaded here.
Heads up: On Tuesday 24 June, the report will receive its U.S. in-person launch at Reuters HQ in New York. A presentation by co-authors Richard Fletcher and Rasmus Nielsen will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Carolyn Ryan from the New York Times, Kevin Ponniah from BBC News and Sally Buzbee from Reuters. Further details. P.S. A post-event recording will be made available on Reuters’ website.
