It’s always dangerous to make predictions, not least because “the internet is forever,” and we are daily finding out that we are in an unprecedented epoch of daily tumult & change.
Influencers Are Now Legitimate Rivals to News Orgs
In 2024, it became abundantly clear that differences in news consumption had absolutely fractured along generational faultlines. A general, non-exact rule:
- The older you are, the more likely you are to consume what we once used to call “Mainstream Media.” That is, newspapers, magazines, cable-TV news.
- In the middle lies the generation that grew up on the “blogosphere,” and that still relies on fairly professional news outlets like Politico, the Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Breitbart, etc.
- The young, future audiences are into podcasts, TikTok videos, and cross-platform influencers like Mr. Beast, Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, etc.
It is imperative that professional news publishers start to try to bridge this gap.
– that ‘young’, future audiences of news media display fundamentally different behaviors and needs to prior generations – 2025 will be the year when publishers attempt to bridge the gap. Perceptions of news journalism are evolving and the competitive field has inexorably changed. We expect publishers to try to evolve their offering set, build awareness with underserved audiences and meet them where they are – collectively placing bets for future monetization opportunities. It will be years before they see returns on their investment.