Unsurprisingly, given last month’s festivities, most online news sites recorded a decline in traffic in December, with the Telegraph losing more than a quarter of its daily browsers (down -29%).
The site finished the year with a 3.5 million visitors after reporting a 5 million-strong audience in November.
The Independent was also hit hard, down -22.1%, while Mirror Group Nationals was down -10.7%.
Some good news for dailystar.co.uk though, which was one of the few sites to actually witness an increase in traffic over the festive period. The online news site managed to grow its audience by 5.4% to secure an extra 38,000 visitors a day.
Similarly, the Sun had reason to crack open the champagne after a 2% increase added an extra 70,800 daily browsers to its 3.5 million-strong audience.
Regional news sites were the real winners though, with a 7.7% boost to Cambridge News’ web traffic – the biggest increase of all recorded online newspapers – drawing 42,300 people to its website in December.
Meanwhile, Plymouth Herald’s online audience was up 7.4%, while Derby Telegraph and Grimsby Telegraph were both up by 6%, and Nottingham Post up 1.2%.
Hooray for local news.
Site | December 16 daily average unique browsers | November 16 daily average unique browsers | Actual change | % change |
---|---|---|---|---|
MailOnline | 13,991,063 | 14,801,375 | -810,312 | -5.47 |
Trinity Mirror Group – Digital | 8,169,583 | 8,898,532 | -728,949 | -8.19 |
Mirror Group Nationals | 4,959,702 | 5,553,047 | -593,345 | -10.69 |
The Independent | 3,592,622 | 4,612,684 | -1,020,062 | -22.11 |
The Sun | 3,535,199 | 3,464,419 | 70,780 | 2.04 |
Telegraph | 3,507,340 | 4,915,465 | -1,408,125 | -28.65 |
Trinity Mirror Regional Network | 3,474,605 | 3,724,511 | -249,906 | -6.71 |
express.co.uk | 1,411,097 | 1,524,567 | -113,470 | -7.44 |
Metro | 1,354,922 | 1,410,708 | -55,786 | -3.95 |
dailystar.co.uk | 744,876 | 706,822 | 38,054 | 5.38 |
Manchester Evening News | 652,881 | 730,146 | -77,265 | -10.58 |
Evening Standard | 544,339 | 694,136 | -149,797 | -21.58 |
Liverpool Echo | 456,622 | 552,344 | -95,722 | -17.33 |
Wales Online | 292,824 | 383,206 | -90,382 | -23.59 |
Birmingham Mail | 277,760 | 280,107 | -2,347 | -0.84 |
Chronicle Live | 213,447 | 244,067 | -30,620 | -12.55 |
Hull Daily Mail (Web) | 104,163 | 111,621 | -7,458 | -6.68 |
Teesside Evening Gazette | 103,268 | 107,635 | -4,367 | -4.06 |
Bristol Post (Web) | 93,953 | 98,514 | -4,561 | -4.63 |
Nottingham Post (Web) | 92,122 | 91,007 | 1,115 | 1.23 |
Daily Post (Wales) | 81,125 | 85,943 | -4,818 | -5.61 |
Plymouth Herald (Web) | 80,255 | 74,718 | 5,537 | 7.41 |
Stoke Sentinel | 79,480 | 82,259 | -2,779 | -3.38 |
Derby Telegraph (Web) | 71,090 | 67,041 | 4,049 | 6.04 |
Coventry Telegraph | 66,321 | 76,832 | -10,511 | -13.68 |
Leicester Mercury (Web) | 60,760 | 62,327 | -1,567 | -2.51 |
Get Surrey | 52,395 | 54,255 | -1,860 | -3.43 |
South Wales Evening Post (Web) | 51,222 | 57,115 | -5,893 | -10.32 |
Huddersfield Daily Examiner | 50,459 | 54,245 | -3,786 | -6.98 |
Get Reading | 44,518 | 48,012 | -3,494 | -7.28 |
Cambridge News (Web) | 42,323 | 39,300 | 3,023 | 7.69 |
Grimsby Telegraph (Web) | 38,408 | 36,252 | 2,156 | 5.95 |
Visiter.co.uk | 12,885 | 14,113 | -1,228 | -8.70 |
theguardian.com | na* | na* | na* | na* |