Arabic news portals are increasingly reliant on social media channels for distribution— the same plague that is eating up profits at western outlets — according to the 1Q2017 Digital Media Index report. The report, which studied 672 news portals in 18 Arab countries, notes that sports news is the most published type of content on Arabic portals at 62%, followed by local news at 59%, and economic content 50%. News portals are also using social media platforms more extensively, the report showed, with Facebook being the most popular. In Egypt, approximately 100% of the estimated 35 mn internet users use Facebook and there are 0.56 online news portals for every 1 mn people. Those platforms each have an average of 3.30 social media channels and 0.49 mobile apps. 83% of all online newspapers in Egypt have presence on Twitter and 89% of them are on Facebook. The complete report from Digital Media Index can be downloaded here and users can also access their eNews Intelligence Dashboard. H/t Wamda.

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