UK online newspapers drawing large international audiences

According to comScore, The Sun Online was the most popular online newspaper in the UK in March, growing 8% year on year to 4.6 million visitors. Guardian.co.uk ranked second with 4.3 million visitors, followed by Telegraph.co.uk (3.9 million visitors), the Mail Online (3.5 million visitors) and the Times Online (3 million visitors).

Globally, the Mail Online derived 73% of its worldwide audience from outside of the UK, followed by FT.com (67%), and Metro.co.uk (61%). Even Thisislondon.co.uk, the website of London-focused newspaper the Evening Standard, derived 48% of its total traffic from outside of the country.

Mike Read, SVP and managing Director, comScore Europe, said: “Traditional UK newspaper brands have proven to be very popular online, both here in the UK and around the world.

“Whether or not these titles choose to switch to subscription-based models, at the possible expense of audience attrition, remains to be seen. However, we can be certain that the online medium has enabled UK newspapers to attract substantial incremental readership from other countries – audiences that were not nearly as accessible in the days of print-only publications.”

A recent report from the European Interactive Advertising Association found that 70% of advertisers claim that their allocated online ad spend is increasing in 2009, with 32% of advertisers claiming the increase in spend has come from newspapers (see Online continuing to be the medium of choice for European advertisers).