MailOnline has surpassed The Sun and The Mirror to become the largest monthly online newsbrand in the UK, excluding the BBC.
That is according to the latest market research data provided by Ipsos iris, which found that in May, MailOnline’s audience grew 3% year-on-year to reach 25.2 million readers, while The Sun and Mirror both saw audience declines of 8% over the same period.
Much of the growth has occurred this spring and summer. Between April and May, MailOnline saw a 1.8% bump in readers, compared to drops of -4.6% and -2.9% for The Sun and The Mirror, respectively. Other newsbrands, such as The Independent (-1%), The Guardian (-1.5%), Metro (-2.7%), and Daily Express (-5.2%) also saw declines from April to May, while The Times and Sunday Times saw a substantial 5.2% bump and The Telegraph (1.6%) grew more modestly.
The data also found that MailOnline is the largest non-BBC newsbrand by total time spent (over 2.1 billion minutes) and page views (over 600 million). These figures dwarf the next-most-engaged newsbrand, The Guardian (1.1 billion minutes and 236.1 million page views). Time spent (+20.5%) and page views (+12.8%) both increased substantially between April and May, especially compared to declines or weaker low-single-digit growth across other newsbrands in such metrics.
“MailOnline is one of the most addictive news sources out there and it is no surprise that, like me, our readers come back daily to read engaging stories on our homepage and app,” said Mail Metro Media chief revenue officer Dominic Williams. “The new ranking shows that even in tough times, people still love our unique coverage of everything that is going on in the world.”
Earlier this year, the Mail restructured its staff, including instituting a number of redundancies at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, as part of an effort described by Daily Mail editor Ted Verity to “aggressively [invest] in digital expansion.” Whereas the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday previously hosted distinct editorial teams, the sister-publications began bridging their news-gathering operations last September.
Danny Groom, MailOnline’s publisher and editor, added: “This reflects the huge efforts we are making to maximise our brilliant editorial content on multiple platforms, while constantly trying to improve and enhance our core product. In an ever-changing digital landscape, we are increasingly trying to develop more sophisticated ways of widening the reach and impact of our content. So, it’s very encouraging to see some of the rewards for these initiatives.”
