Top Ten U.K. Online Newspaper Sites

13 May 2008 10:41 Africa/Lagos


The Sun Ranked as the Most Widely Read Online Newspaper in the U.K. in March

LONDON, May 13/PRNewswire/ --


- Nearly 15 Million People Visited Newspaper Sites during the Month


comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study summarizing the usage of websites for major daily newspapers, based on data from comScore Media Metrix. The study revealed that 14.8 million people in the U.K. visited a newspaper site in March, viewing a total of 448 million pages of newspaper content over the course of the month.


(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080115/COMSCORELOGO)


The Sun Online was the most popular online newspaper in the U.K., attracting 4.3 million visitors in March and accounting for nearly 30 percent 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).



Top Ten U.K. Online Newspaper Sites
Ranked by Total U.K. Unique Visitors
March 2008
Total U.K. - Age 15+, Home & Work Locations (000)*
Source: comScore Media Metrix

Total Unique Total Pages
Property Visitors (000) Viewed (MM)
Total U.K. Internet Audience 33,761 107,287
Newspapers 14,823 448
The Sun Online 4,268 131
GUARDIAN.CO.UK 3,619 44
Telegraph Group Ltd 2,754 20
Times Online 2,600 21
DAILYMAIL.CO.UK 2,466 40
INDEPENDENT.CO.UK 1,017 3
MIRROR.CO.UK 989 11
Financial Times Group 841 12
METRO.CO.UK 488 3
THISISLONDON.CO.UK 376 2




*Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.


"With 44 percent of the U.K.'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.


Traditional Newspaper Content Proves Popular Amongst Online Readers


An analysis of the online behavior of heavy online newspaper readers (defined as the top 20 percent of visitors to the newspaper site category based on time spent, as measured by the comScore Segment Metrix service), revealed their strong appetite for traditional newspaper-type content across the Web, including politics, job listings, lifestyle - food, and financial news. These heavy online newspaper visitors were more than three times as likely as the average Internet user to visit politics sites (index of 337) and more than twice as likely to visit the job search (index of 216), hobbies/lifestyle - food (index of 211) and finance - news/research (index of 207) site categories.



Top Ten Site Categories Visited by Heavy U.K. Online
Newspaper Site Visitors
March 2008
Total U.K. - Age 15+, Home & Work Locations (000)*
Source: comScore Segment Metrix

Site Category Composition Index**
Politics 337
Job Search 216
Hobbies/Lifestyle - Food 211
Finance - News/Research 207
Car Rental 192
Entertainment - News 191
Home 186
Business to Business 183
Health - Information 181
Religion 180

*Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.


** Composition Index = % of heavy news site visitors/% of total Internet population x 100; Index of 100 represents parity


"From the publisher perspective, understanding the types of sites that heavy online news consumers also visit can help identify the content that might help keep them more engaged at the publishers' sites," added Mr. Flanagan. "And from the advertiser's point of view, understanding the interests of the core online newspaper audience can provide unique insights for targeting ads to them that are consistent with their interests."


About comScore


comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/boilerplate


Web site: http://www.comscore.com


Source: comScore, Inc.

Jamie Gavin of comScore, Inc., +44-(0)-207-099-1775, worldpress@comscore.com / Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080115/COMSCORELOGO/ AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/ PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com