It’s been a big news week with rate rises and the US midterm elections. With so much going on, we thought it would be interesting to compare how people consume news, including undertaking our own survey and creating nine news habit “archetypes”.

Our survey results show that news sources are extremely diverse, with respondents turning to podcasts, newspapers, television, and social media. The number of times a day people get news also varies, with some respondents engaging with news sources multiple times a day, others just once or twice a day.

We also looked at Canberra University’s 2026 Digital News Report which found that Australians are consuming more news rather than less. News consumption rose 3 percentage points in 2026, and 56 percent of Australians now access news more than once a day. This increase in interest has been driven by under-35s and women, who are typically lighter news consumers.

Additionally, social media is quickly catching up to TV as a major news source. TV is still the top source at 57 per cent, but social media is now close behind at 56 per cent. Age is a big influence on which social media platform someone turns to, with older Australians using Facebook and younger Australians using TikTok. Nearly half of 18-24-year-olds use TikTok for news, making it their top platform, and more than half in that demographic have never read a newspaper.

Even though the data shows news consumption is increasing, many Australians are also news avoidant. 68 per cent of Australians say they avoid news, including 83 per cent of 18-24-year-olds.

At PB Comms, our news consumption is equally diverse. Some listen to podcasts every day, while others never listen to them. Many of us dip in and out of news sites throughout the day. From this, we came up with the News Consumption Archetypes:

• The Grazer: small bites all day, from whatever’s in front of them.
• The Bookender: fixed times, trusted sources, done for the day.
• The Scroller: news arrives through the feed, mixed in with friends’ holidays and memes. The algorithm chooses, not them.
• The Pinged: relies on push alerts. If it didn’t buzz, it didn’t happen.
• The Osmoser: picks it up second-hand from group chats, a partner or the office kitchen. Rarely goes to a source directly.
• The Backgrounder: radio or TV news on while doing something else. Takes it in without really sitting down to it.
• The Deep-Diver: skips the daily churn, then binges long reads, the weekend papers or a podcast on one story.
• The Obsessive: follows one beat closely, like politics, markets or footy, and ignores the rest.
• The Avoider: deliberately tunes out because it’s too depressing or too much.

To find out which archetype you resonate with the most, try our quiz!