Social media is becoming less important for news sites

In September, according to GfK, nearly 8 million people in the Netherlands visited online news media daily (7,902,000 people aged 13 or over, i.e. 53% of reach). This number has increased slightly in recent years, while the proportion of people who visited social media via or simultaneously (Facebook and Twitter) has decreased. In September 2019, this share was still 80%, in 2021 it reached 75%, falling further to 66% in September of this year.

Despite this significant decline in referrals, GfK is still seeing an increase in monthly online access to NRC Online. FD.nl saw the smallest decline in referrals. Both online news sites have a fairly strict paywall for content. Researchers note a similar trend in the United States, where social media companies publish and/or allow fewer links to news media.

Comparatively, the 49- to 64-year-old group visits online news media most often (64% of reach), while the number of young people who visit online news media daily is 40 percent. Among the top five online news media, AD had the highest monthly reach in September (8.8 million people), while NU.nl was visited by 7.6 million people. NOS reaches almost the same number of people at 7.5 million, while RTL News has seen the strongest increase in recent years (now 6.7 million visitors). The number of Telegraaf users increased slightly to 6.2 million people.