TikTok Surges as Top News Source, Outpacing TV Among U.S. Adults in 2025

Social media and video apps have overtaken television as Americans’ main source of news for the first time, capping a rapid shift that has pushed TikTok and other platforms to the center of the country’s information ecosystem. More than half of U.S. adults, 54%, now say they get news from networks like Facebook, X and YouTube, edging out TV at 50% and news sites and apps at 48%, according to the Reuters Institute’s 2025 Digital News Report.crn +1

Against that backdrop, TikTok has emerged as the fastest‑growing individual platform for news. A new Pew Research Center survey found that one in five U.S. adults — 20% — now regularly get news on TikTok, up from just 3% in 2020.economictimes Among Americans under 30, the shift has been especially stark: 43% say they regularly get news on TikTok, compared with 9% five years earlier.economictimes The platform’s reach has also deepened among its own users: 55% of adult TikTok users say they regularly get news there, more than double the share in 2020.economictimes +1

The new habits are part of a broader generational divide in where Americans turn for information. Pew’s 2025 social media fact sheet shows that 53% of U.S. adults at least sometimes get news from social platforms, with Facebook and YouTube still leading in overall reach, but TikTok and Instagram rapidly closing the gap.pressgazette +1 Younger adults are far more likely to treat TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and X as regular news sources, while older Americans continue to lean on television and established outlets.pressgazette Women skew toward getting news on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, while men are more likely to rely on YouTube, X and Reddit. Partisan patterns are also visible: Democrats are more likely than Republicans to get news on Instagram, TikTok and Reddit, even as both parties still consume significant amounts of TV news.pressgazette +1

For traditional broadcasters and publishers, the turning point underscores a loss of gatekeeping power that has been building for a decade. The Reuters Institute report describes U.S. media as “struggling to connect with much of the public,” noting declining engagement, low trust and stagnating digital subscriptions even as more people say they value accurate brands.pewresearch In the United States, weekly viewing of news video has jumped from 55% in 2021 to 72% in 2025, much of it consumed inside social platforms rather than on news organizations’ own sites.crn That has left publishers torn between pushing content into feeds that rarely send users back, and risking irrelevance with younger audiences who seldom visit homepages.

The new environment has also elevated individual personalities over institutions. The Reuters analysis found that podcaster Joe Rogan was the single most widely seen news or commentary figure in the U.S., with about 22% of respondents saying they had encountered his material in the previous week.pewresearch Separate research from YouGov this year showed that while legacy outlets such as PBS, the BBC and The Weather Channel remain among the most trusted brands, most social platforms score negative trust ratings for news — with TikTok near the bottom at -26.pewresearch Even so, 61% of Americans report getting news from social media in the past month, more than from any individual TV channel or news site.pewresearch

The rise of TikTok has revived long‑running national security and misinformation concerns in Washington. U.S. officials have warned that the app’s Chinese ownership could be leveraged to subtly tilt political content or suppress topics, a fear sharpened by its growing role in shaping young voters’ information diets.bbc +1 TikTok avoided an outright U.S. ban through a negotiated deal now being formalized in an executive order, but the platform remains under pressure to demonstrate how it polices propaganda and falsehoods.reuters Researchers, meanwhile, note that social algorithms across platforms routinely privilege “shareworthiness” — emotionally charged, polarizing content — over traditional news values, a dynamic they say can amplify misinformation and deepen ideological divides.usnews

Newsrooms and political strategists are racing to adapt. Many outlets have built TikTok and Instagram video teams to produce short, informal explainers tailored to the vertical screen, even as editors worry about cannibalizing their own traffic. Some are experimenting with AI‑generated summaries and personalization tools to keep audiences inside their apps.pewresearch Politicians have increasingly bypassed mainstream interviews in favor of appearances with sympathetic podcasters and influencers, mirroring a wider trend in which candidates rely on creators’ vast followings to reach voters who rarely watch cable news.pewresearch +1

Despite the upheaval, surveys suggest Americans still say they prize trustworthy reporting, even if they encounter it less often. Pew finds that when people actively try to check whether something they’ve seen online is true, many still turn to familiar news brands — but younger and less affluent users are more likely to stay inside social platforms, scrolling comments or asking AI chatbots instead of seeking out original sources.pewresearch +1 That gap, researchers warn, leaves large parts of the public navigating a news environment increasingly shaped by opaque algorithms and viral personalities, with fewer shared reference points than ever before.