Mapping local news provisions and reach in England

Another notable trend in the UK local news sector of the last decade has been the decline of circulation and readership of printed local newspapers, as news production, distribution and consumption patterns have changed due to digital technologies and online platforms. The map shows the reach of the printed version of the main title in the JICREG area (percentage of adult population, monthly). The average reach was 23%. As the map illustrates reach varies considerably between different geographical locations: areas with lower number of newspapers tend to have lower levels of audience reach of main title. Most of local newspapers in the UK are weekly, on our study 78% of titles were weekly, 17% daily and 5% monthly.

The UK local news sector has also experienced disruption from the introduction of new forms of local news and new ways for distribution. Local news providers offer their content on multiple platforms. While the readership of printed local newspapers has declined, local news consumption online has expanded significantly. It is estimated that 25% of British adults accessed websites or apps and 16% of them used social media for local news in 2018 (Ofcom, 2018). The map shows the digital reach of the main title in the JICREG area (percentage of adult population, monthly). The average digital audience reach was 42%, which means that digital reach is usually higher than print reach for local news. However, as the map illustrates digital audience reach varies greatly and more so then print audience reach (stdev for former was 30% and for latter 12%).

Analysis of the relationship between digital and print reach of main title in an area shows no clear relationship between the two, as the map illustrates. There are areas where both are low or high, and there are also areas where just one of them is low or high. This indicates that local news audiences do not automatically switch from print to online, and that local news providers have different online strategies, some more successful than others.

The UK's local newspaper industry is highly concentrated with five companies publishing 80 percent of all titles (Media Reform Coalition, 2019). The map here shows ownership structure of the sector by main title in JICREG areas included in the study. As it is illustrated local newspaper ownership is concentrated in geographical areas close to each other, which reflects business strategies of companies to exploit regional economies of scale. 

Analysis of areas with one title shows that the owner of that one newspaper tend to be one of the main corporate owners in the sector. Smaller publishers, with one or few titles, do not control areas with only one newspaper. This could be the result of corporate strategies aiming for regional dominance.

Presence of hyperlocal (alternative local news provision) is indicated in the map using data from the Centre for Community Journalism at Cardiff University. It is often perceived that hyperlocals have emerged where there was a lack of mainstream local news provision (Harte et al. 2019). In our study average figure for number of titles is lower in areas with hyperlocal than in areas that do not have hyperlocal (1.83 vs 2.19). This map, however, does not show a direct link between presence of hyperlocal and number of local newspaper (as illustrated in different sizes of bubbles in areas with hypelocal). The finding suggests that emergence of alternative local news provisions is influenced by other factors, not just availability of mainstream/traditional local news outlets. However, it should be noted that there is no comprehensive list of hyperlocals in the UK, and the data used here do not include all such titles.