NRS PADD: Newsbrands dominated by mobile readership

Between January and December 2016, just two national newsbrands had a readership dominated by print, according to the latest NRS figures from PAMCo – with the majority of readers now accessing news content via mobile.

The Times continues to have a loyal print following with 4.2 million consuming content via the newspaper and 1.5 million via mobile.

Similarly, 10.4 million of freebie Metro’s 17.5 million readers are in print, while 8.9 million come from mobile.

However, for the remaining newsbrands, mobile accounts for more than half of their audiences.

Unsurprisingly, the Independent – which became a solely online publication in March last year – benefits the most from mobile readership, which makes up 14.4 million of its 16.9 million digital-only readers.

For The Telegraph, 15.2 million out of 21.4 million come from mobile, while 17.2 million of the Guardian’s 22.7 million are from mobile.

Since ditching its paywall almost 18 months ago, the Sun has seen a huge surge in digital readership and now reports 19 million mobile readers compared with 10.1 million for print.

The Daily Mail’s 29.1 million-strong audience has a similar make-up, with 19.9 million coming from mobile and 9.9 million from print.

Simon Redican, chief executive at PAMCo, said: “The latest data continues to show the good health of the published media sector.

“What is particularly interesting is that mobile now represents the largest platform for two thirds of those brands measured across all platforms. This bodes well for the launch of AMP (Audience Measurement for Publishers) when it will be possible to plan and buy across all platforms for the first time.”

AMP, which will launch later in 2017 or early 2018, is part of an ambitious reform of readership measurement in the UK, overturning a system that had been in place for more than 60 years in the form of the National Readership Survey (NRS).