Weather chaos provides web traffic surge

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by HoldtheFrontPage Staff Published 08 Jan 2010

Trinity Mirror websites have seen traffic uplifts of up to 130pc from the recent bad weather as journalists work round-the-clock to keep readers up-to-date with developments.

The publisher’s daily titles in Newcastle, Teesside, Birmingham, Coventry and Liverpool have run live blogs enabling readers to find accurate information about school closures, weather updates and traffic information.

The result has been a surge in online traffic of up to 130pc at some of the larger regional daily websites.

Neil Benson, editorial director of Trinity Mirror Regionals, said: “The big freeze has been a great example of how our journalism, across all platforms, has been an invaluable source of information for our readers.

“The huge level of interest and interactivity shows that when they need local information they can trust, people will turn to us, whether it’s via the papers or our web sites.”

Coverage included:

User-generated photos complementing staff pictures uploaded to the papers’ Flickr groups. Titles including the Birmingham Mail and Liverpool Daily Post have benefited form having a presence on the photo-sharing site.

Newcastle’s Evening Chronicle showcasing more than 100 photos submitted by readers on Thursday afternoon alone via its website ChronicleLive.co.uk.

The Liverpool Echo reverse publishing comments placed under stories about the snowy conditions.

School closure lists in Birmingham where around 300 schools were shut, with the list updated hourly until midnight each night. Liverpool had around 200 schools closed and 800 were reported by the Evening Chronicle.

Newcastle, Birmingham and Liverpool all running live blogs via CoverItLive to provide instant updates on the weather conditions, school closures and travel details. Thousands of people have participated in the blogs.

Instant information to users, with readers being forthcoming with information to the paper, helping in the creation of content such as reports on road conditions.

Centres producing daily videos incorporating UGC and footage shot on camera phones along with Press Association video feed content to produce packages which have appeared on sites.

Birmingham and Teesside, where the Evening Gazette is based, producing archive galleries of bad snow storms from years gone by and Birmingham running a survey with readers on how the council coped with the snow, prompted by many complaints from users about school closures.

Trinity Mirror is not the only regional publisher to make widespread use of CoverItLive during the recent snowfalls.

Elsewhere, Northcliffe dailies the Hull Daily Mail and The Herald, Plymouth, both utilised the live blogging software to host webchats with readers about the weather.

Comments

Chris Youett (12/01/2010 15:55:17)
How much extra revenue did Trinity Mirror take, compared with selling 30 per cent more copies of its morning & evening titles. This is what Neil Benson ought to be looking at.

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