In the digital age, TV is still king in the Philippines. Nine out of 10 Filipino adults or 91% get their political news from the medium that is tipped to be replaced by digital, results of a Pulse Asia poll released Tuesday showed.
For around half of Filipino adults, radio and the internet are their go-to sources for political news updates with an audience share of 49% and 48% respectively according to the Sept. 6 to 11 poll of 2,400 respondents with a +/-2% error margin.
More than a third of Filipino adults at 37% said they get their news from friends and/or relatives while a quarter mentioned friends and/or acquaintances.
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Newspapers got the smallest audience share with only 3% of Filipino adults saying they still source news from print.
Facebook is the go-to for Filipino netizens
Among those who get their news online, Facebook is the leading source with 44% saying they get news from the social media platform. Ownership of a Facebook account is almost universal for internet users in the country with 99% saying they have one.
Nearly all Filipino internet users at 99% say they go online to check their social media accounts, while over half or 53% say they access the internet to read, watch, and/or listen to things of interest to them such as movies, recipes, and celebrity news.
Only 41% go online to read, watch, or listen to news about the government--even fewer about the elections at 24%.
Just like the apparent universality of having a Facebook account in the Philippines, the use of instant messaging apps is also essential with 99% of internet users in the country using one.
Facebook's Messenger dominates the market with 98% using it. Other messaging apps lag behind Messenger with only 5% saying they use Viber, and 2% for both Telegram and WhatsApp respectively.
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