Silver surfers stick with big news brands

Silver surfers prefer to get their news from the BBC but are among the most frequent visitors to Telegraph.co.uk, according to latest statistics.

Web measurement firm Hitwise produced a chart indicating the top 10 news and media sites with Britons in the over-55 age bracket.

BBC News, bbc.co.uk and BBC Weather led the pack as the top three destinations picked by senior internet users, while The Weather Channel, Telegraph.co.uk and Times Online were showed to have the largest proportion of users in the demographic.

Of the news sites in the top 10, Google News was silver surfers' least favourite, while portal rival Yahoo! claimed greater numbers of readers in the age bracket.

Hitwise statistics produced for the four weeks ending May 20 showed that the over-55s make up almost one sixth of the UK online population. Travel pages, however, were the most popular destination for seniors, who were responsible for more than a third of travel sites' traffic - more than double the proportion for all websites in general.

Age Concern is currently holding internet workshops and taster sessions around the UK for would-be web users over 50 in a "Silver Surfer Week" co-sponsored by BT and Microsoft.

The Hitwise table shows May's top 10 most popular websites with the over-55s, and the proportion of those sites' audience in the over-55 bracket.

1. bbc.co.uk (17.02%)
2. BBC News (16.52%)
3. BBC Weather Centre (23.97%)
4. Met Office (25.33%)
5. Telegraph.co.uk (26.02%)
6. Yahoo! UK & Ireland News (19.79%)
7. Times Online (24.91%)
8. Sky.com (14.08%)
9. The Weather Channel UK (26.65%)
10. Google News UK (16.18%)

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