???Neal's News Audience Explainer, Part 2

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Recap: The Five News Audience Segments and Why They Matter

This is a continuation of my previous article on the different kinds of news audiences.

We previously talked about direct impact consumers (aka the skin in the game crowd), news junkies, and entertainment seekers.

This article discusses two more kinds of news audiences: secondhand consumers and the actively disengaged (aka the people who avoid the news).

Let’s go.

But First… A Message From Neal

I have limited client availability this August and autumn 2024 for comms projects.

I would love to work with your agency or in-house team. Let's discuss how we can work together.

Visit Ungerleider Works for expert strategic communications consulting.

Group 4: Secondhand Consumers

Secondhand news consumers, as a matter of course, won’t regularly listen to The Daily or scroll through X on their phone when they have a minute of downtime.

What secondhand news consumers will do is open the links that people text or email them and look at interesting news articles which come across their generally non-news oriented social media feeds. They will occasionally turn on cable news or watch news programming on television when it looks interesting. Unlike news junkies, their televisions will never be default set to Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC.

Secondhand news consumers and the disengaged make up approximately two-thirds of the population.

They are a group that publishers and advertisers can both reach but reaching them requires additional work.

Large-scale events like the Olympics and the US Presidential election help draw in this audience. Local news stories of direct relevance are also helpful (for instance, in my corner of suburban Chicago, whether the Chicago Bears will move to Arlington Heights or not) as are heavily promoted interviews on talk shows and podcasts.

Advertisers and sales teams reaching this group should focus on moving the conversation to venues where this audience can be reached more easily (social media, ads on streaming services) and on low-friction conversions (free digital subscriptions with no auto-renew, complimentary unlocking of articles).

Group 5: The Actively Disengaged

There is a very large segment of the American public that actively avoids engaging with the news and current events, with limited exemptions carved out for sports and celebrity gossip.

This segment of the American public probably has better mental health and is happier than other groups! But they, too, read news articles and watch the news on television or watch news content on YouTube on occasion.

The actively disengaged tend to distrust news outlets (with fair reason, of course) and avoid what they see as either negativity or a worldview that clashes with their own in much news coverage.

Publishers will have limited success with this audience segment. Audiences that consider watching the six o’clock news as an actively stressful experience are unlikely to subscribe to their local newspaper or to a general interest publication.

Advertisers can reach the actively disengaged through, well, every other channel. OOH. Text messages and WhatsApp. Ad retargeting. Social. Everything but publications.

However, there are opportunities to get this audience consuming news-y content on their own terms. Making niche content for YouTube, TikTok and Facebook is a great way to reach out to micro-segments who might not be big news people but are interested in compelling content. It might be harder, but they are out there.

News Matters

Let’s talk big picture!

Looking at all these audience segments together, and how they overlap, shows a lot about how information is shared and absorbed today… and, more relevant for us as People Who Make Money From This Stuff (TM), how news outlets and advertisers generate revenue.

Direct Impact Consumers, News Junkies, Entertainment Seekers, Secondhand Consumers, and the Actively Disengaged all have their own unique needs and behaviors.

Individual people often belong to more than one of these groups at a time. The project manager at a construction company may pay very close attention to news about residential real estate but may not be on top of world news. There are plenty of people who may not follow gymnastics or competitive swimming regularly, but actively seek out news about those sports during the Olympics. There is the immigrant who pays close attention to news from their birth country but may not consume any other news content.

All of these are normal human behaviors and these audiences overlapping make total sense!

Understanding these nuances helps media outlets and advertisers connect more effectively with their audiences.

At the end of the day, here’s the thing: People aren’t marketer personas or interchangeable members of broad demographics; they’re living, breathing humans with their own wants, needs, and motivations.

This is as true for the way people read, watch, or listen to the news as it is for anything else.

Meet your audiences where they are at, be humble, and don’t be afraid to try new strategies.

And remember: Share your successes.

About the author: Neal Ungerleider runs Ungerleider Works and specializes in strategy and creative consulting for the digital comms world. He has written dialogue and decision trees for holograms of famous scientists for corporate headquarters, brainstormed Cannes Lions applications for one of the world's largest tech companies, helped clients sell $15,000,000 software upgrades, and works on lots of other things.