Consumers Love Smart Speakers But Not For News

Smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are rapidly gaining in popularity, but use of news on the devices is lagging, according to the Nieman Lab, citing a report released last week by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Use of the devices for music and weather is still far ahead of news use. And among consumers’ complaints about news briefings: They’re too long.

However, there’s time for news publishers to catch up, finds Nic Newman, a senior research associate at RISJ, who did his research via in-home interviews and focus groups, online surveys, and publisher interviews. He also tapped Amazon, Apple, and Google for whatever data they were willing to share — which, unsurprisingly, wasn’t a lot; none of the companies would share data on how many devices they’ve sold or discuss trends in how news is consumed on them. Smart speakers are still devices for early adopters: 14 percent of U.S. adults are now using them. Juniper Research predicted last year that they’ll be found in 55 percent of U.S. households by 2022.

Here are some of Newman’s findings:

• News consumption on smart speakers is lower than one might expect. In the U.K., for instance, while 47 percent of smart speaker users said they use the device for news monthly and 21 percent use it daily, only 1 percent said news was the device’s most important function. In the U.S., 38 percent of smart speaker users use the device for news at least monthly and 18 percent at least daily.
• When it comes to which news brands people access on their smart speakers, the default matters a lot: In the U.K., for instance, the default news brand on Google Homes, Amazon Echos, and Apple HomePods is BBC News. In the U.S., there’s a more even split between brands in part because NPR is no longer the default on Alexa. (It is on Apple devices, however.)

Smart speaker news briefings didn’t get much love from users in this research. Here are some of the complaints Newman heard:

• Overlong updates — the typical duration is around five minutes, but many wanted something much shorter.
• They are not updated often enough. News and sports bulletins are sometimes hours or days out of date.
• Some bulletins still use synthesized voices (text to speech), which many find hard to listen to.
• Some updates have low production values or poor audio quality.
• Where bulletins from different providers run together, there is often duplication of stories.
• Some updates have intrusive jingles or adverts.
• There is no opportunity to skip or select stories.

Length in particular was an issue that arose. One American interviewee named Adam said, “When someone asks for an update on something, they are asking for a summary. Don’t give me something that is longer than a minute.” Right now, for instance, when you ask for news on a smart speaker from The New York Times, you get its podcast, The Daily, which is usually at least 15 minutes long.