Last week, I argued that traffic to traditional publishers – both direct and branded – has been eroding for years, and that the under-35s are leading the way. Not exactly, but the idea.
Now that I am no longer part of that group, it is easy to blame them. Which is absolutely what I intend to do.
Small Audience Share it They did not decrease significantly
Based on the UK’s 15 biggest publishers (and Similarweb’s ever-leading data), 18-34s make up 29.5% of the publisher’s average audience. That is slightly above our ONS population benchmark of around 28%.
In that number alone, publishers seem to represent the country they serve. I use the name work for freely here.
Until it looks stable. The publisher’s average share of 18-34 year olds has declined slightly in just three years:
- Premium Publishers: -3.0pp
- Public service: -2.6pp
- Popular publishers: -1.0pp
- Platforms saw the biggest drop in the share of younger audiences: -6.8pp
It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly not the numbers that justify the anger around a younger audience. Especially when you see that platforms have lost audience share in the 18-34 bracket as well.
Platforms have an average audience of 49.2%, about 1.7 times the amount of the publisher. No traditional publisher clears 40%. The New York Times tops the set at 39.1%, although their audience is only in the UK; the BBC follows with 35.1%.
So What’s All the Fuss?
Sharing doesn’t tell the full story. It’s just an estimate. Sharing with your younger audience may not look like much if you’re also losing older audiences. Which is exactly what this data shows.
Across all publisher segments, younger audiences are declining Immediately than the old – overall it is 12%-32% lower. For publishers, a young audience looks like a shrinking slice of a shrinking pie.
In fact, the younger audience has declined significantly:
- Popular publishers: -34.2%
- Premium: -30.7%
- Public service: -16.9%
- Pitches: -9.2%
So while the platforms saw the biggest decline in the share of the younger audience (-6.8pp), they saw the younger audience decrease in volume.
These statistics have obvious caveats: third-party data estimates both share and volume. And this is just a visit to the websites; data does not include application data. But if you compare apples to apples, the guidance that’s what matters. Even if the apples have wasps in them.
Have Young People Moved To Platforms?
Not according to this data. Not on their websites at least, which is the limit of this data. The app experience of TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, etc., is much better and probably one of the main goals of the platform.
It is very difficult to say that the younger audience has left all to social media based on this data alone. Especially in their season the oldest the audience grew by more than 10% in real terms.
Nothing in this data proves that the platforms are like that it sucks audience publishers lose. I’m sure these users have just moved to feeds and apps that are hard to scale – they haven’t moved to the open web.
The defense is simple and uncomfortable: For publishers, the young audience is completely and clearly reduced.
So what do we do?
If you think attracting and retaining a small audience is a problem, you’re not an outsider. Many traditional publishers are in the same boat. The first step is to identify the magnitude of the problem. Understand well there you stay up to date with your competitors.
That’s the exact work done for our young audience: A ranking scan that measures your sharing and engagement against the right peer set and places you in one of four quadrants:
- Distribution problem.
- Engagement problem.
- Compatibility problem.
- Ideal AND attractive (no one is in this quadrant position, but we can dream).
We combine this data with scanning capabilities that show when you’re winning or losing young readers across the funnel for young audiences. From inspiration (awareness) to fandom (talk).
Instead of panicking, we can diagnose, prescribe, and provide clear, data-driven recommendations. Very healthy.
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