For the first time in Kenya’s media history, social media has overtaken television and radio as the nation’s leading source of news, and the data makes the shift impossible to ignore.
The Media Council of Kenya’s (MCK) 2025 State of the Media Report, released on Monday, May 5, 2026, to mark World Press Freedom Day, confirms a structural break from the broadcast era. In terms of weekly media consumption, social media now commands 27% of Kenya’s media , ahead of television at 25%, radio at 19%, and print at 13%.
When Kenyans were asked which platform they consider their main source of news, the gap widens further: 39% name social media, up from 37% in 2024, compared to TV at 31% and radio at 21%. Just 1% of respondents still rely on print newspapers for their primary news fix.
WhatsApp leads among social platforms at roughly 20%, followed closely by Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Telegram. The MCK report attributes the surge to widespread smartphone penetration, cheaper mobile data, and the appeal of real-time, personalized content that traditional media’s scheduled bulletins simply cannot match.
The decline of broadcast is swift. Daily television viewership dropped six percentage points in a single year, from 63% in 2024 to 57% in 2025. Radio has fallen similarly, shedding five percentage points in the same period. The MCK report notes starkly: “Digital consumption is no longer growing alongside broadcast; it is growing at its expense.”
Kenya’s trajectory mirrors a broader global pattern. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025, published in June 2025 by the University of Oxford, found that across 48 markets, dependence on social media and video platforms for news is highest among 18 to 24 year olds, a demographic that makes up the majority of Kenya’s population. Kenya also ranked among the highest globally for TikTok news use at 40%, and more than half of Kenyans surveyed said they use YouTube for news.
The shift carries risks. The MCK report flags misinformation as a top concern, with 28% of Kenyans citing it as their primary worry about the media. The Reuters Institute separately found that 59% of Kenyan respondents view online influencers and personalities as the biggest source of false or misleading information, the highest concern level recorded globally.
Yet trust in media overall is rising: 79% of Kenyans now express some or a lot of trust in journalism, up from 74.5% in 2024. The challenge for Kenya’s media industry is no longer whether digital wins the question now is whether trusted journalism can find its footing in the feeds.
