14.8 Million People Visited A Newspaper Site In March

New figures from comScore reveal that 14.8 million people in the UK visited a newspaper site in March, viewing a total of 448 million pages of newspaper content over the course of the month.

The Sun Online was the most popular online newspaper in the UK, said comScore, attracting 4.3 million visitors in March and accounting for nearly 30% of all pages viewed in the newspaper category.

Guardian.co.uk had the second largest audience with 3.6 million visitors, followed by Telegraph Group Ltd (2.8 million visitors), and the Times Online (2.6 million visitors).

“With 44 percent of the UK’s total online population accessing a newspaper website and viewing half a billion pages of newspaper content in March, it’s clear that the expansion of traditional print newspapers to the Internet is making a significant contribution to their overall readership,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore.

The ComScore data is compiled using a panel, and does not measure traffic at schools and colleges, or web usage in public venues, or from mobile devices or among under-15s.

There is a big difference between comScore’s figures for March and the recent ABCe figures.

ABCe figures said that the Sun Online had almost 14 million users for March, up from around 12.5 million the month before, whilst Guardian.co.uk’s user numbers were down slightly to around 18.7 million (see Mirror Group Reports First ABCe Figure For March).

ABCe defines a Unique User as “‘The total number of unique combinations of a valid identifier, Sites may use (i)IP+UserAgent, (ii) Cookie and/or (iii) Registration ID.’ Note that where USERS are allocated IP addresses dynamically (for example by dial-up Internet Service Providers), this definition may overstate or understate the real number of individual USERS concerned”.

comScore: www.comscore.com