Television remains the biggest news source for Russians despite becoming less trusted over the past decade, past Levada polling has said .

Russians’ trust in television news as a news source dropped by 25% in the past decade, according to the independent Levada Center pollster’s latest report on the national media landscape.

Trust in television news among Russians has dropped from 79% in 2009 to 54% this year, Levada’s results said on Thursday.

Russians’ trust in news websites, meanwhile, has grown threefold and trust in social networks has grown fivefold in 10 years, according to the Russian pollster’s results.

“Russians’ trust in the way television covers primarily economic topics has significantly decreased in the past year,” the authors wrote.

“Respondents often see television as a channel of information dependent on the state, so its trust level is often linked to the national leadership’s approval levels and the state of affairs in the country,” they added.

Russians’ viewing habits also dropped from 94% of Russians watching television news in 2009 to 72% watching it in 2019. Older Russians over 65 years old are significantly more likely to watch television news than those aged under 25, with a 51% gap between the two age groups.

The popularity of online news sources like Yandex.News grew from 29% last year to 39% this year in Russia, according to Levada’s results.

Pro-Kremlin pundit Vladimir Solovyov remained the most-trusted television news figure at 23%, followed by talk show host Andrei Malakhov at 11%. Television presenter Andrei Norkin, media personality and talk show host Vladimir Pozner and political commentator Olga Skabeyeva shared the third spot at 6% each.