Continuing our series on ad-blocking, today we put a spotlight on an audience of online news readers, to assess the challenge to news publishers.
The news industry’s dependence on advertising income faces a strong test from ad-blocking tools. Millennial online news readers are most likely to use ad-blockers (58%), and Gen Z (56%) are not far behind. Yet the Baby Boomers of this group are also discovering these tools, with 38% using them.
With ad-blocking established among the majority of younger online news readers, we can expect it to become mainstream in the future. As we have already shown this week, ad-frustration is the key factor driving ad-blocking, and so in accommodating their ad-blocking audience, publishers have to ensure that the ads they serve are relevant and unintrusive.
In tomorrow’s chart, we will take a closer look at ad-blocking Millennials and their engagement with paid digital content.
Online news readers are defined as internet users aged 16-64 who say that they read online press.
