Guardian Remains Most Popular National UK Newspaper Website
New research from Nielsen//NetRatings has found that the Guardian remains the most popular national UK newspaper website – as it has been for each of the last 12 months – with 2.7 million unique visitors in August.
The research – looking at the performance of the ten most popular national newspapers in the UK in terms of audience size, growth and the time spent on the sites – also found that for the first time in 2007, the Sun (2.0 million uniques) lost second spot; it is now third behind the Telegraph (2.1 million uniques) in terms of popularity.
Overall, said NetRatings, 7.4 million Britons (23% of Britons online) visited at least one of the ten most popular national newspaper websites.
Alex Burmaster, European internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings, said: “Whilst the Guardian and Daily Mail have consistently remained the most and fifth popular, respectively, over the last year, the battle for the places in-between has see-sawed between the Sun, Times and Telegraph.
“August is the first month of 2007 not to see a Guardian–Sun-one-two, with the Telegraph coming into second spot – being ahead of both the Sun and the Times for the first time.”
| The “Top 10” most popular UK National Print Newspapers by UK online audience – August 07 | |||
| Rank | Newspaper | Unique Audience (000’s) | Active Reach |
| 1 | Guardian | 2,677 | 8.40% |
| 2 | Telegraph | 2,079 | 6.50% |
| 3 | Sun | 2,049 | 6.40% |
| 4 | Times | 1,912 | 6.00% |
| 5 | Daily Mail | 1,434 | 4.50% |
| 6 | Daily Mirror | 721 | 2.30% |
| 7 | Independent | 681 | 2.10% |
| 8 | Scotsman | 657 | 2.10% |
| 9 | Financial Times | 303 | 1.00% |
| 10 | News of the World | 297 | 0.90% |
| Eg 2.7 million Britons visited The Guardian website in August 07 = 8.4% of all active Britons online | |||
| Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, UK NetView home & work data, August 2007 | |||
| 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most popular UK National Print Newspapers by UK online audience | |||||
| Rank | Setp-Dec 06 (4 months) | Jan & Feb 07 (2 months) | Mar-May 07 (3 months) | June & July 07 (2 months) | Aug 07 (1 month) |
| 2 | Times | Sun | Sun | Sun | Telegraph |
| 3 | Sun | Times | Telegraph | Times | Sun |
| 4 | Telegraph | Telegraph | Times | Telegraph | Times |
The number of Britons visiting at least one of the “Top 10” grew from 5.6 million in December 2006 to 7.4 million in August 2007 – a growth of 30%, said NetRatings.
The Daily Mail has experienced the greatest growth amongst the “Top 10” across 2007, more than doubling its audience from 0.7 million in December 2006 to 1.4 million in August 2007 (117% growth).
The Telegraph is the only other of the “Top 10” to at least double its audience; growing by 106% from 1.0 million to 2.1 million.
| Unique Audience Growth: How the “Top 10” UK Nationals have performed across 2007 | |||||
| Rank | Newspaper | UA Change Dec 06-Aug 07 | Unique Audience (000) Dec 06 | Unique Audience (000’s) Aug 07 | UA Rank Aug 07 |
| 1 | Daily Mail | 117% | 661 | 1,434 | 5 |
| 2 | Telegraph | 106% | 1,007 | 2,079 | 2 |
| 3 | Daily Mirror | 65% | 436 | 721 | 6 |
| 4 | Financial Times | 51% | 201 | 303 | 9 |
| 5 | Independent | 44% | 474 | 681 | 7 |
| 6 | Sun | 35% | 1,513 | 2,049 | 3 |
| 7 | Scotsman | 31% | 500 | 657 | 8 |
| 8 | Guardian | 26% | 2,125 | 2,677 | 1 |
| 9 | Times | 20% | 1,587 | 1,912 | 4 |
| 10 | News of the World | 20% | 248 | 297 | 10 |
| Eg Daily Mail’s audience grew by 117% from 0.7 million in Dec 06 to 1.4 million in Aug 07. It’s currently the 5th most popular UK national online | |||||
| Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, UK NetView home & work data, December 2006 – August 2007 | |||||
“The leading UK national papers online have achieved excellent growth since the start of the year. As a group, they’ve experienced 30% growth which is particularly impressive considering the online audience itself has grown by just over 9% in the same period. This means, as a group, the leading nationals online are growing at three times the rate of overall UK Internet growth,” Burmaster added.
The NetRatings audience figure data refers to UK internet users only accessing the internet from home or work. It, therefore, doesn’t include overseas visitors or UK visitors accessing the internet from non home/work locations e.g. educational establishments, internet cafe’s, airports etc.
Last month, ABCe figures said that the Sun‘s website broke the 10 million unique user* barrier in August, up more than 36% year on year (see Sun Website Gets 10 Million Unique Users).
*ABCe defines unique users on each of their certificates 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.
Nielsen//NetRatings: www.nielsen-netratings.com