UK web traffic down in September | NUJ launches journalist safety tracker
And we have your news diary for the week ahead
Welcome to your daily newsletter from Press Gazette on Monday 4 November 2024.
Leading UK news websites had a tough September, with most of the sites in our top 50 losing traffic both month on month and year on year.
One site doing amazingly well is Yahoo!. The old-school web portal is the second most popular news website in the UK (in terms of audience minutes) according to Ipsos iris. Yahoo is reckoned to have 1.8bn audience minutes per month, second only to the BBC.
The intriguing thing about Yahoo! is that it creates almost no journalism itself, it merely aggregates the content of others. Paywalled brands like The Telegraph share their content with Yahoo! because of the generous advertising revenue share it offers them.
Yahoo! can sell advertising at a premium by targeting signed-in users of its email service.
Intriguingly (and somewhat gallingly for News UK) The New York Times has lengthened its lead over The Sun with 346 million audience minutes in September versus 278 million for the Murdoch title. The paywalled NYT is up 61% year on year, fuelled no doubt by interest in the close-fought presidential election.
View our full top-50 ranking of UK newsbrands here.
Today we also hear why a new safety tracker has been created for UK journalists to report abuse and intimidation.
And your news diary for the week ahead highlights a packed agenda with the US presidential election tomorrow, Kemi Badenoch's first PMQs as Tory leader on Wednesday and the possibility of the first UK interest rate cut since August on Thursday.
On Press Gazette
Top 50 UK news websites in September: Leading publishers see sharp traffic drop
More than three-quarters of the 50 biggest news websites in the UK saw their audiences fall in September compared to August.
Comment: Tracking abuse of journalists makes us all safer
“An unreported offender, of any kind, is a danger to every other journalist pursuing stories.”
News diary 4-10 November: US presidential election, new Tory leader makes PMQs debut
A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda this week, from the team at Foresight News.
News in brief
The Met Police has confirmed it has handed over a file related to Russell Brand to the CPS, in a departure from its usual policy of pre-charge secrecy. The allegations against Brand were first revealed by The Sunday Times, Times and Channel 4 Dispatches. (BBC News)
Marc and Lynne Benioff are in talks to sell Time to Greek media group Antenna Group for $150m, CNBC reports. The Benioffs acquired the magazine from Meredith Corporation in 2018 for $190m. (CNBC)
Men's lifestyle website The Book of Man has started a £10k crowdfunding bid to launch a print edition. It is for men who are interested in "emotions, creativity, friendship, relationships, work and society" rather than watches and James Bond. (The Book of Man)
Robert Kagan and Danielle Allen, two former Washington Post opinion writers who quit the paper over its non-endorsement decision, are joining The Atlantic as contributors. (CNN)
The Rest is History has 45,000 paying subscribers, The Wall Street Journal reports, which in combination with advertising revenue "make[s] it possible for each host to earn nearly $100,000 a month" or $1.2m (approximately £900,000) a year. (The Wall Street Journal)
The Daily Beast was on track to lose $10m this year before media executives Joanna Coles and Ben Sherwood took management of the brand, Sherwood has told The New York Times. The pair have since enacted a voluntary buyout programme that has cut headcount 35%. (NYT)
UK-based news weekly The Economist has said it would vote for Kamala Harris if it could, warning Donald Trump "poses an unacceptable risk to America and the world". The title has more than 800,000 subscribers in North America. (The Economist)
This week on Press Gazette:
Guardian CEO warns staff Observer faces ‘difficult decisions’ if Tortoise deal fails
Ofcom fines GB News £100,000 after ‘serious and repeated’ impartiality breaches
Metropolis employee passport and bank details compromised in cyberattack
How publishers use AI to boost productivity: From audio editions to exploiting archives
Guardian endorsement of Harris reaps it near $2m boost after editor’s email
Listen to our latest podcast
Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford and reporter Bron Maher provide an insider take on three of the hottest issues in news media: how did the Washington Post handle its election endorsement so badly? Why are Guardian and Observer journalists set to go on strike? And what can publishers do about the onslaught of generative AI bots harvesting their content without permission?