New report charts 20 most-read digital news brands in UK

A new report shows the 20 most-read digital news brands in the UK.

Mail Online is top of the list, followed by the Telegraph and then the Guardian. Newsquest comes in at number six followed by Johnston Press in seventh place.



The first of this new type of report has been published today and combines statistics for audiences reading news sites via a web browser, on mobile and via apps.

It has been published by online measurement body UKOM and comScore and is based on a combination of data sources, including reader surveys, which the NRS PADD report also draws on.

The report shows that the Mail Online had a total UK readership of 16.9 million in September, with 11.3 million accessing via desktop and 10.7 million reading on mobile or tablet. The news site has 5.6 million readers who only read on mobile or tablet and did not read the desktop site.

The Telegraph had a total UK digital readership of 13.3 million in September. The report states 9.1 million read on desktop, 6.4 million on mobile and that the site had an exclusive mobile and tablet audience of 4.3 million.

The report shows the Guardian had 12.1 million UK digital readers in September. Out of those, 8.5 million read on desktop, 5.9 million on mobile and it had a mobile-only digital audience of 5.9 million.

Stats are different to those supplied by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), which uses web browsers as a key metric, meaning that if someone reads in two browsers, perhaps one of them on a mobile device, that reader is counted more than once.

In September the Mail Online was found by ABC to have 46.9 million UK browsers, the Telegraph was reported to have 23.5 million UK digital browsers and the Guardian 22.5 million UK browsers.



A release states that today's report "combines audiences for browsing, apps and video across all three platforms to produce accurate, deduplified data that represents the actual number of people accessing all web properties online over the course of a month".

The report finds that the total digital population of the UK reached 47.3 million users in September.

Correction: This story initially said the report charts the top 25 news brands when it actually releases data on the top 20. There was an error in the initial press release.

The story has also been updated to show that Independent.co.uk had a total digital audience of 7.5 million, not 5.5 million, and that Newsquest and Johnston Press were placed sixth and seventh respectively, not fifth and sixth. The first graph was also updated to include data from Topix.

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