With the less than 25 days to the end of 2021, the outcomes of the news consumption trend analysis in Nigeria have shown that Nigerians and other nationals consumed sports and lifestyle related news stories during the year. From January to November, our analyst tracked news categories searched and read by the public. Starting from the beginning to the end of every day, our analyst tracked the most occurred news category from national and global perspectives. This led to a total of 3,673 news.
With 2, 114 news, sports category dominated. Lifestyle followed sports news category with 956 news reports from the two geographies. One hundred and sixty-eight news were found for crime while 143 news consumed were business related happenings in Nigeria and other countries. Surprisingly, educational related events and happenings were consumed less. Our analyst found 38 news for the category during the months used for the analysis.
Exhibit 1: Top News Categories
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Source: Google Trends, 2021; Infoprations Analysis, 2021
Month-by-month analysis shows that education and politics news were searched and read the most in January. It was business news in February and lifestyle in March. In April, in addition to consumption of business news, Nigerians and other nationals also read lifestyle related news. Like what was recorded in February and March, analysis indicates that crime related happenings and events were consumed the most.
On a surprising note, consumption of happenings and events related to education and politics was high in June, six months after recording such feat. The level of consumption across news categories increased in July. Our analysis reveals that July was the month that ignited consumption of more than two news categories by Nigerian. During the month, crime, politics, lifestyle and health were searched and read the most. In August, the readers prioritised sports, crime and politics. Health and sports news were the priorities in September. In October, business, health, crime, education, politics and sports were predominantly considered by the readers. In November, education, health, crime, sports and lifestyle news were the priorities.
Exhibit 2: Consumption Trends by Geography
Source: Google Trends, 2021; Infoprations Analysis, 2021
There was a moderate difference between consuming national and foreign news categories from January to April [see Exhibit 2]. In May, though Nigerians searched and read foreign news most, a closed level of consumption was discovered. A slight difference in the consumption across the two geographies also found in June before wide margin occurred in July and August. This is equally recorded in September and October. Like the closed level of consumption recorded in May, a slight difference existed in November. Though, there are 23 days to the end of 2021, our projection indicates that Nigerians and other nationals in the country would search and read foreign news content more than the national ones.
Looking at these outcomes, our analyst notes that they are in line with the findings in the 2021 Top Google Search report released by the Google, a global tech company, which releases what people searched the most across the world with the specific reference to the individual country. In the report, as quoted by many national newspapers, Nigerians searched Paralympics, Lukaku/Romelu Lukaku, champions league draw, EPL results and Messi transfer as part top 10 searches in August. They also searched Big Brother Naija, which is lifestyle related.
For the year 2022, our analyst notes that the emerging outcomes have several implications for people, businesses and government. It is obvious that Nigerians and other nationals would continue to consume foreign content more than the national ones due to preference for foreign content, especially sport events and happenings. With this, it is necessary that businesses and government key into the public traces on the digital platforms and online communities for possible dissemination of commercial and public related information.