Strong growth for many online newsbrands | Local news websites ranked
Top-50 UK, global and US newsbrands rankings for July show most sites growing traffic year on year
Good morning and welcome to your Press Gazette Future of Media newsletter on Thursday 29 August.
Press Gazette’s Future of Media Technology Conference, the UK’s biggest and best event for media leaders, is on 12 September in London. Secure your ticket here.
After a tough couple of years for news publisher audience data, are the good times back?
Press Gazette's latest exclusive publisher rankings suggest readers are turning back to professional newsbrands.
Most encouraging is the data from the UK regional press. Today we publish the latest online audience estimates for the top 78 local newsbrands in the UK which reveal booming growth in July for most titles.
The monthly reach for some titles is stupendous, with the Manchester Evening News (Reach), Birmingham Live (Reach) and the Evening Standard websites all being read by more than ten million UK adults per month.
As ever though, the challenge is how to make money out of those readers. The Standard’s huge online audience hasn’t saved it from having to make around half its staff (70 people) redundant as it phases out its daily print edition.
Earlier this week we reported regional press daily print circulation figures down 17% year on year, with the Manchester Evening News down to 6,500 copies per day. But for MEN publisher Reach, print still accounts for 75% of revenue.
Today we publish fresh data for the top-50 UK news websites which paints a similarly rosy picture.
Looking at the top ten biggest UK online newsbrands, six are up year on year (in what was, admittedly, a big month for news).
We complete our comprehensive data round-up with the top-50 global English-language newsbrands.
It is good to see that, so far, generative AI-enhanced search does not appear to have impacted overall publisher web traffic. But Google has begun to roll out AI summaries far more widely in its search results in recent weeks and Press Gazette will be closely monitoring the impact.
Future of Media Technology 2024 - 12 September in London
Press Gazette’s Future of Media Technology Conference takes place on 12 September in London. Other media conferences are available but this really has become the biggest and best event in the UK for media leaders.
Our speakers include:
DMG Media CEO Rich Caccappolo
Guardian chief supporter officer Liz Wynn
Politico deputy editor in chief Kate Day
News UK chief operating officer David Dinsmore
Harmsworth Media chair Nina Wright
Reach plc’s Live network editorial director Paul Rowland
Global head of SEO Steve Wilson-Beales
Former head of news partnerships at Google Madhav Chinnappa
Head of technology at Haymarket Media Group Payal Sharma Sood
Times head of digital Edward Roussel
Mail Digital Publishing product director Simon Regan-Edwards
Telegraph chief commercial officer Karen Eccles
On Press Gazette
UK local news websites see audience bounceback
Updated ranking of top 78 UK local news websites for July 2024.
Top 50 UK news websites in July: Sky News jumps into third place
In a busy news month 37 of the websites in our top 50 saw month-on-month growth, and 34 saw year-on-year growth
Top 50 news websites in the US: All but two sites see growth in bumper July for news
Top 50 news websites in the world: Readers flock to top US newsbrands in July
Regional daily ABCs: Print circulation down by average of 17% in first half of 2024
More than half of the regional daily newspapers included in the ABC report had a circulation below 5,000..
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