Newspaper consumption has decreased over the last year of 2023-24 a report by the Communication Authority of Kenya shows.
According to the report dubbed Audience Measurement and Industry Trends report, there was a slight decline in newspaper consumption compared to radio and TV.
"The first quarter of the year 2023-24 showed 17 per cent of consumers engaged in newspaper reading and 16 per cent in the second quarter of 2023-24," the report read.
"While radio and TV consumption showed a usage of 77 per cent and 74 per cent of respondents for the first quarter, the second quarter had 78 per cent and 75 percent respectively."
The report also shows a gender difference with a higher media consumption rate among male respondents for radio, TV, internet newspapers and magazines.
The audience in the age group of 45 and above demonstrated the highest engagement in radio and newspaper activities, while the 35-44 age group exhibited the highest television and magazine consumption.
"When it comes to reading newspapers, there are regional disparities, with the South Nyanza region having the lowest participants at 7 per cent, while Nairobi leads with 21 percent," a part of the report reads.
The predominant media consumption pattern observed in both quarters is the combination of Radio, TV, and Online, constituting 24.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2023/2024.
This showed that the majority of the population engages more with radio and television compared to newspapers.
More males read newspapers as compared to females. In terms of age, readership is fairly similar as 67 per cent of males read the newspaper compared to 33 per cent of females.
Higher readership incidences are reported in Nairobi at 22 percent and Rift Valley topographies at 19 per cent.
"Radio is more popular in rural areas especially in the Western region at 85 percent and Rift Valley regions at 82 percent. Television consumption was prominent in urban areas such as Nairobi at 82 per cent."
Newspaper readership has a total of 5.6 million consumers while radio has 25.2 million listeners and TV has 24.2 million viewers. "This shows a gap range of 19.6 between the two media."
"Some of the challenges reported to affecting the decline in readership was the heightened competition of individuals interacting with multiple media such as radio and TV, radio and social media."
An increase from 32 per cent to 42 percent was evident in the second quarter which has heightened the competition.