Independent online grows as Lebedevs look for print buyer

Mirror Digital Group and the Independent online were the only online news platforms to see any growth over the festive period, while the MailOnline dropped by over half a million daily browsers.

Last week, it was announced that the Lebedevs are looking for a buyer for the Independent and its sister titles, in a bid to “offload loss-making papers that they see no prospect of turning into profit.”

While all three print titles currently make a loss estimated at £10 million a year, the newsbrand’s online counterpart saw a 5.5% increase in average daily browsers over December, adding an extra 70,000 to take its total to almost 1.4 million.

Up 8.6% in December 2013, Mirror Digital Group secured an average of just over 2 million visitors a day, up 160,500 on November and seeing the biggest increase of all the titles.

The MailOnline suffered the biggest hit over the month, down -5.7% and losing an average of almost 600,000 visitors to the site each day, however the newsbrand’s website still sits comfortably at the top of the table with a daily average of almost 10 million visitors.

Over the same period the Telegraph online and guardian.co.uk were down -2.7% and -2%, respectively.