From newsroom to newsfeed: Why news broadcasters and content creators should partner to reach young people

As the attention economy fractures traditional media consumption habits, Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs) risk losing reach among young viewers. According to Ofcom, three-quarters of 16–24-year-olds report that they get their news from social media platforms. MIDiA's Q3 2025 Consumer Survey indicates that there's demand for more trustworthy digital information, with almost a third of consumers saying reliable information / news is one of the top social platform features they want more of. If PSBs want to meet this demand and maintain widespread reach, they must adapt their strategy to how younger audiences consume media.

Who do young people trust? 

While traditional broadcasters are broadly seen as trustworthy, this trust has to be earned with younger audiences. After years of watching scandals unfold across governments, public bodies, and broadcasters, trust in institutions is eroding. 

Instead, young people are more likely to trust individuals they know personally and the creators they follow online. Their trust in creators builds gradually through repeated exposure to content that consistently aligns with their interests. As per MIDiA’s attention framework, audiences move from disposable attention (short-lived attention driven by short clips and little connection) to habitual attention (attention shaped by routine) and finally to devotional attention (emotionally invested engagement). At the devotional stage, audiences not only follow and support a creator, but form a highly committed fandom built on sustained engagement – with this, comes a measure of trust. 

Harnessing the creator-audience relationship

For younger, digitally native audiences, repeat exposure is the key to building trust. Despite getting their news on social media, they still initially treat it with skepticism. Aware of misinformation and AI, they tend to only believe news-related content is real once they have seen it multiple times on their feed or assessed the discourse in the comments section. 

The single source news model is a distribution framework no longer fit for our fragmented society. Young people need trusted voices, delivered multilaterally. 

A partnership to fight misinformation

There’s an opportunity for PSBs to partner with select “expert creators” to combat misinformation. “Expert creators” centre their content around knowledge building and information sharing, typically serving a recognisable niche such as politics, sports, or technology. They translate facts into language that resonates with their audiences. 

Bethan McGinley (@bethanmcginley) educates her Instagram audience of primarily Gen Z women by explaining the news while she gets dressed for work. This blend of informational content on fashion inspiration, delivered by a trusted personality in snappy, visually engaging videos, is optimised for the algorithm and the consumption habits of her audience. Dylan Page, also known as News Daddy (@dylan.page on TikTok), has one of the largest news accounts on the platform. He delivers daily round ups of recent news, aimed at an audience of young people overwhelmed by the complexity of today’s news landscape. His TikTok follower count of 19.8 million outnumbers the BBC’s following of 16.4 million, which demonstrates the impact of individual storytelling compared to traditional newsreading on social media platforms.  

PSBs could collaborate with trusted content creators like these to blend verified news with creative storytelling. This could involve hiring creators to make PSB-verified content that goes live as the news stories do, collaborative Instagram posts between creators and news outlets, or traditional newsreaders emulating creators’ digital storytelling techniques to make content more algorithm-friendly. Strategically targeting creators that operate within niche pockets of the internet will help disseminate verified facts to the hard-to-reach digital echo chambers, where misinformation typically propagates.