Nielsen Data Report: September 2014

The UK’s online universe took another fall in September, according to data recently released by online measurement company Nielsen. In total, 38.6 million users went online in the UK over the month, translating to an insignificant month on month fall of -1.4%.

Breaking down the active universe by age and gender reveals that not all is equal in the UK’s online ecosystem. Men aged 50 and over make up 19% of everyone that went online in September but women in the exact same age group online accounted for 15% of the total, despite the total male/female split balancing out at 52%/48%, respectively.

As usual, the middle classes (intermediate managerial, administrative or professionals) dominated the internet with a whopping 31% fitting into the B social grade, followed by C1s (lower middle class) who made up 19%.

Further breakdowns can be found using the Universe Profile report.

Top News Sites

The homepage for the BBC remained the most popular source of news in September, with the site even reporting a month on month rise of 5%. This saw the amount of visitors jump from 15.9 million in August to 16.8 million in September.

Overall the site ranked in fifth place, boasted an active reach of 43% and saw the time spent by each visitor rise slightly to one hour and 46 minutes.

Due to the BBC‘s overall popularity, the second most popular newsbrand came in with a significantly smaller audience, with MailOnline an entire 10.9 million users behind the BBC site. Despite competing with the long shadow cast, the Associated News-owned site was the most popular online national newspaper with 5.8 million visitors over the month.

Despite a -6% month on month fall, MailOnline held on to second place, even with the Guardian snapping at its heals. September brought 83,000 new users (a 2% rise) to the Guardian Media site, pushing it up to a total of 5.5 million, just 269,000 users behind its celeb-obsessed gossipy rival.

Newsquest Media Group took the biggest hit in the top ten with a loss of -415,000 users, which translated to a -15% month on month fall. The collection of regional newspaper sites, such as the Kingston Guardian and Milford Mercury, fell from an overall rank of 88^th in August to 110^th place as a result.

MailOnline‘s little sister, Metro.co.uk, also saw a fall in traffic as a result of an -11% fall. Time per person also fell, with each of the 2.2 million visitors for September spending 10 minutes and 40 seconds on the site.

Top Social Media Sites

Facebook remained the most popular social network over the month, with its browser-based offering reaching 48% of the UK’s online population alone. Users racked up a staggering six hours and 29 minutes each over an average of 19 sessions per person.

The most prominent social media experience had a unique audience of 18.6 million users throughout the month and despite a huge month on month fall of 1.3 million users still held onto the third position overall.

Twitter.com came in second place with its browser-based usage (across all devices including machines and tablets) resulting in 6 million UK individuals and a 16% active reach. It wasn’t all good news for the micro blogging site as a -10.4% drop (-699,000 users) over September resulted in Twitter.com falling one overall place to 26^th.

Blogger and Reddit were the only two sites in the top ten to escape unscathed, increasing their numbers by 128,000 and 221,000 users, respectively.

Significantly less fun than other competitors on the list, but popular nonetheless, was the social site for professionals LinkedIn. A total of 3.8 million users visited the networking site through a browser, representing a -3% drop. Despite this the site managed to clamber up two over all places to claim 57^th place and increased time spent per person by 18 minutes, leading to an average of one hour and 22 minutes each.

Further breakdowns and reports can found in MediaTel’s Online database.