Culture & Education | Thursday 8 January, 2015 4:04 pm |

Ipsos has just released its latest News Pulse survey results in Saudi Arabia, to unveil the ‘Newsers’ habits in all possible angles. The term ‘Newsers’ is used to define the individuals who consume the News at least 3 times a week.

The first inkling we get from News Pulse KSA conducted by Ipsos online in June 2014, is the intense interest in news with 85% of Saudis keeping up with the news important of which 46% find it extremely important.

The findings of the Ipsos Survey include:
Despite the captivating interest in News, a minority of 24% follow “closely and intensively the news” while 53% follow the news for “a general overview” of which 62% check on the news different times a day.
Only 16% follow the news on strict regular timing which suggests that the News diet of Newsers in KSA doesn’t fall into strict time boundaries.
In terms of News types, local political news is the most consumed news (56%) followed very closely by the Middle eastern news (55%) and a bit distantly from Health (46%) , Science/technology (45%) and Sports News (44%) .
Whereas in terms of News content the main bulletin remains the core of News consumption with 57% followed by breaking news tickers 48%.

Most watched? Most trusted?
43% of Newsers clearly state the preference of a News dedicated channel vs 8% for GE channel while compiling the news.
An intriguing finding is the trust in international channels with 60% of Newsers preferring to watch the international News on an international channel compared to 29% preferring to watch the local News on a local channel.
Trusting a single channel in getting the News seems a weak habit with barely 7% doing so and with 49% zapping between channels for further news validation.
Not only the concept of a single News channel is almost obsolete but also 53% would be interested in exploring a new News emerging channel and 49% are likely of making of it their new News favorite channel.
26% are still seeking additional News.
42% prefer impartial News and 10% only would watch a channel with a different political point of view.

TV remains the most credible source of News and the first source to break the news YET the numbers pertaining to this fact are draining.

The News Sources
The use of Twitter has more than tripled the past 2 years and attains now a 12% as the first source of breaking the news.
News Pulse instructs us that the Newsers in KSA are typical Integrators . Which means they are not traditionalists eschewing all forms of modern News sources and at the same time they are not Net-Newsers seeking only online sources.
TV remains the main source for News with a massive 83% ,followed by the online publications 50% which has surpassed the traditional papers 38%. The latter is very comparable to News on FB 40% and Twitter 36%. Twitter has exactly doubled compared to News Pulse data 2 years back.Youtube remains limited to 16%.News websites and TV websites are also very popular (46% and 37%)
As a first common pattern, Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera seem to be running the show in KSA with an 84% awareness for the first and 76% for the second.
The interest in channels with international affiliation was clear right from the beginning of the survey with 60% of Newsers preferring to watch the international News on an international channel.
Moreover Al Jazeera Moubasher 56% takes over Al Hadath 39% exiting the top 10 channels in 2014 when it comes to awareness.
While the awareness is pretty much abundant amongst tv channels some figures are worth mentionning :Ekhbariya 68% , MBC 1 61%, BBC Arabic 58% and Saudi TV 57%.
BBC Arabic is the viable truth of the potential of Internationally affiliated News channels followed by SNA with 41% awareness and Russia today 35 %. It is worth noting that SNA has nearly doubled its awareness in KSA compared to 2012 and ranks tenth while RT climbs up the ladder and ranks 15th.
It is worth noting that CNN looses all its appeal in News Pulse 2014 with awareness dipping from 24% to 1%.
However, CNN.com and BBC.com are remarkably visited by Saudi Newsers. (23 and 18% respectively)

Arabic News channels with international affiliation have their share of audience mainly

News consumption habits and trends in KSA are thoroughly covered from various angles in News Pulse. The survey serves as a repertoire of News landscape across all platforms and all channels.