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Sheppey bridge pile-up leads to website hits record

A newspaper group’s website recorded its highest ever levels of traffic during its coverage of yesterday’s 130-car pile-up on the Isle of Sheppey crossing.

More than 120,000 unique browsers visited KM Group’s KentOnline website to watch the drama unfold throughout the day, making it the most viewed story since the site was launched in 2000.

Reporters also filed regular updates to the family-owned firm’s network of kmfm radio stations, which provided travel updates and breaking news of one of Kent’s worst ever accidents throughout the day .

Sittingbourne Messenger editor Matt Ramsden remade this week’s edition on deadline – moving the adverts from front of book pages to provide in-depth coverage.

Sittingbourne Messenger's front page

KM Group editorial director Ian Carter paid tribute to a ‘brilliant’ team effort involving all parts of the company, from the subs and page planners who remade papers on deadline, to the photographers providing stills and video and the radio presenters who kept listeners informed throughout the day.

“It really was a case of everyone pulling together, with the online content superbly marshalled by editor Sandra Hembery and news editor Danny Boyle,” he said.

“We’re incredibly fortunate at the KM Group that, in addition to our websites and newspapers, we have our kmfm radio stations and all parts of the company work together as one. It meant we could provide the complete news package.

“We knew it was a big story but even so we were taken by surprise by quite how much traffic it generated, particularly because it was also leading the BBC and Sky bulletins.

“Of course, reacting to huge breaking news  is what all journalists should live for. However, it’s gratifying that our most-read story since launch was a major incident rather than the current depressing trend for uploading gimmicky non-stories in the hope they go viral.”

KentOnline was the fastest-growing regional news network in the lastest ABCs, with monthly unique browsers increasing by 41.3pc year on year.

8 comments

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  • September 6, 2013 at 10:06 am
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    It’s that great paradox in newspapers. The worse the news, the better the readership. It seems like revelling in disaster, but that’s the business

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  • September 6, 2013 at 10:59 am
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    Website “hits” record? Is this the late 90s still?
    How about some proper report of repeats, dwell time, how it compares to usual times, impact of social, mobile vs desktop, etc etc?

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  • September 6, 2013 at 12:23 pm
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    Great contribution Jon. Let’s just run a ComScore screen grab shall we? I think . most people are aware the headline figure is precisely that, and of course there’s more detail underpinning it. Well done though.

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  • September 6, 2013 at 3:10 pm
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    Does ‘dwell time’ include the time taken wiping and flushing?

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  • September 6, 2013 at 4:02 pm
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    Perhaps Jon works for the artist formerly known as KRN – I am sure he’d like to see some cross-pollination with some HuffPo style contributors, not to mention mobile platform enhancements.

    The rest of us, meanwhile, can salute some cracking coverage of a really good story.

    Scoop – wasn’t there a paper a wee while back whose incapable management thought it would be a good idea to have a ‘Good News Week’? I’m sure we can guess what happened when THAT edition came out.

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  • September 9, 2013 at 12:13 pm
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    Nerdy? Yes, but hits are a very different thing to unique browsers so the headline is actually wrong. However, I don’t see the need for an in-depth analysis of the web traffic, Jon. Most of the elements which you mention are a driver for one thing… giving the ad reps and advertisers a headline figure of how many people actually read it. Well done to KM!

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  • September 9, 2013 at 3:56 pm
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    Good point on the gimmicky non-stories, I feel. Anyone remember the woman with the giant chip? Do those sort of stories do anything towards building a loyal audience, or do they just get you laughed at?

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