The national and local news media industry provides significant economic, cultural and social value in the UK, a new report has found, with the sector contributing £5.3 billion to the UK economy in 2015.
According to the Deloitte report, commissioned by the News Media Association (NMA), 90% of news media organisations’ total spend with suppliers remains within the UK, compared to the average of 77% across the economy. The sector also accounts for 58% of the total investment in news production – making it the biggest investor in original news content.
Last year news media invested £97 million in digital services, while generating £4.8 billion revenue through circulation and advertising. In addition to economic benefits, news media publishers – which support an estimated 87,500 jobs in the UK – have also been found to help boost SMEs, improve literacy, enhance community cohesion and underpin democracy “by holding powerful figures and institutions to account”.
“This report provides compelling evidence of the significant economic, cultural and social value that news media contributes to the UK,” said NMA chairman, Ashley Highfield.
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“The industry performs a unique democratic function by investing in agenda-setting investigative journalism which holds authority to account such as the Guardian’s Panama Papers revelations, The Sunday Times’ investigation into FIFA, and the Jersey Evening Post’s investigation into online child grooming which was praised by the NSPCC.”
However, Highfield said the report highlights an “urgent need” for a fair and equitable regime in which news media publishers’ investment in news is appropriately acknowledged and rewarded, “without the commercial benefits being siphoned off by digital platforms and aggregators.”
NMA vice chairman David Dinsmore said: “This report makes it abundantly clear that well researched, properly produced journalism which holds the powerful to account is more in demand – and more needed in our society – than ever before.
“Urgent action must be taken to ensure that news media publishers’ ability to fund the original agenda-setting news and information our readers want us to produce is not fatally undermined by third parties who gain so much from our investment while contributing very little.”
