A survey organised with Australia’s parliamentary inquiry into regional newspapers showed a fifth of respondents buy a printed newspaper.

Results of the online poll accompanied the report by its chair, MP Anne Webster.

It showed that a quarter of the 1700 respondents subscribed to digital media, and “despite the pandemic”, 56 per cent had not changed the way they accessed news in the past 12 months.

Of those surveyed, 69 per cent had accessed news in the past week via regional print or digital news services, ahead of other media outlets including television (63 per cent), social media (55 per cent), radio (49 per cent), and metropolitan news services (print or digital) at 41 per cent.

Most (62 per cent) put local news ahead of other forms of media consumption, followed by national and global news (24 per cent), and 55 per cent of those in regional areas looked primarily to news websites for information. Community issues were “best represented” in regional news services, whether print or digital (46 per cent), followed by social media (27 per cent), radio (nine per cent) and TV (five per cent).

The report also presented results of a 2021 study of nearly 4,200 rural, regional and suburban newspaper readers by Hess, Waller, Blakston and Lai (Media innovation and the civic future of Australia’s country press) which showed the “clear link” between readers’ ages and preference to print.

Only five per cent of younger audiences say they mostly used social media to find out about local news, while more than 50 per cent of audiences of all ages said they mostly accessed local news via print.

• Read the full report