NRS: The national audience for 5 UK titles is more than 40 per cent millennial

The efforts to engage young audiences with news seem to be paying off for UK newspapers, according to the latest NRS PADD figures released today.

More than 40 per cent of the national audience at The Independent (40.7 per cent), the Guardian (41.62 per cent), the Sun (43.3 per cent), Daily Mirror (44.5 per cent) and Metro (46 per cent) is aged between 15 and 34.

The NRS data also shows that while 95 per cent of all UK adults consume some form of published media, whether that’s a newspaper or magazine, in digital or in print, 98 per cent of millennials do so.

“Despite popular perceptions, reach amongst young audiences is actually higher than for the population as a whole,” Simon Redican, chief executive at PAMCo, said in a press release.

Total audience numbers for most titles between October 2015 and September 2016 have dropped compared to the previous period (July 2015 to June 2016), but The Sun registered a growth of 70 per cent from 14.1 million UK readers to 24 million.

The Sun is now the fourth most read newspaper in the UK (on digital and in print), after The Daily Mail (29.2 million), the Guardian (26.1 million), and The Daily Mirror (24.9 million).

For The Independent, whose audience is entirely digital after the title put a stop to its print edition back in March, a drop in readership from 21.1 million in the last period to 16.9 million was registered in the current report.

Its share of mobile-only audience continues to grow, as 75.5 per cent of the title’s UK readers access its content only through mobile devices. The Independent has long been topping the table with a majority mobile-only audience.

More than half of the total UK audience at The Daily Express (53.3 per cent), The Telegraph (56.9 per cent), The Daily Mirror (61.2 per cent) and the Guardian (63.3 per cent) also read the titles only on mobile and not on desktop or on print.

The NRS PADD figures are released by the Published Audience Measurement Company (PAMCo), and the data released today represents NRS PADD readership data from the period between October 2015 and September 2016, incorporated with comScore data from September 2016.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).