British newspapers have experienced the biggest circulation decline in any country outside the US since 2007, new figures show, highlighting the dominance of online news.
Figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development show that UK circulation fell by 25 per cent between 2007-09. This was second only to the US's 30 per cent decline, but ahead of other significant fallers Greece (20 per cent), Italy (18 per cent) and Canada (17 per cent).
The statistics were published in an OECD report entitled The Evolution of News and the Internet, which found that 20 out of 30 OECD countries experienced falling newspaper circulations.
The study also found that more than half the population read news online in some OECD countries, including Korea, where 77 per cent do so. Despite that, the report said that "the willingness to pay for online news remains low".
News was a significant driver of internet traffic with an estimated 5 per cent of searches related to reading news online, a figure that the OECD described as a "conservative estimate".
Online advertising revenues, however, accounted for a "minuscule" proportion of total newspaper revenues – just 4 per cent in 2009 – raising fears for the financial viability of independent news gathering
