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Year-on-year audience growth continues at Trinity Mirror websites

ABClogo-e1424873874120Web traffic continued to grow year-on-year at Trinity Mirror’s regional daily newspaper websites despite a Christmas readership dip, according to the latest ABC figures.

The North Wales Daily Post was the only title to record a month-on-month increase in daily average unique browsers in December, with a lack of activity around the Christmas holidays impacting readership on other sites.

However, all the titles recorded in the latest figures revealed a year-on-year increase in readership between December 2014 and December 2015.

The biggest gain in this field was again made by the Daily Post, with 77,177 daily average unique browsers accounting for an 82.3pc year-on-year rise.

Month-on-month, Wales Online (which incorporates newspapers including the South Wales Echo and Western Mail) recorded the biggest decrease with a drop of 17.8pc leaving the website with an average of 258,964 browsers each day.

All titles continued to record increases in the number of readers using their Facebook and Twitter channels during December.

David Higgerson, digital publishing director and assistant editorial director for Trinity Mirror Regionals, said: “We would always expect December’s traffic figures to be lower than November’s due to the Christmas break, which leads to significant change in reader behaviour.

“Our focus is on engaging with readers more frequently, so we are delighted that at many titles, the rate of page view growth is outstripping unique user growth. Time spent on site per visit is also growing quickly.

“Four of our biggest sites, MEN, ChronicleLive, GazetteLive and Daily Post saw month on month unique user growth which was down to spikes in the number of readers turning to us when bad weather hit these areas. It’s very encouraging that readers now increasingly think of us as their first port of call when big stories break.

“The scale of year on year growth is testament to the hard work of all of our journalists, and is aided by greater focus on audience analytics throughout our newsrooms.”

The following table shows the web figures for December in full:

Website Daily Average UB M-o-M change (pc) Y-o-Y change (pc)
Birmingham Mail 196,824 -11.7 35
Coventry Telegraph 56,067 -9.4 29.1
Daily Post (Wales) 77,177 1.3 82.3
Huddersfield Daily Examiner 52,772 -2.4 35.9
Liverpool Echo 422,360 -10 59.6
Manchester Evening News 558,095 -4.6 34.5
Newcastle Live 203,436 -1.1 30.5
Teesside Evening Gazette 101,305 -1.5 40.2
Wales Online 258,964 -17.8 45.1

The following table shows the Facebook figures for October in full:

Website Facebook ‘likes’ M-o-M change (pc)
Birmingham Mail 190,513 21.8
Coventry Telegraph 25,281 3.6
Daily Post (Wales) 87,191 15.1
Huddersfield Daily Examiner 60,164 6.9
Liverpool Echo 1,040,990 1.4
Manchester Evening News 851,173 4.7
Newcastle Live 152,167 7.7
Teesside Evening Gazette 85,536 4.1
Wales Online 193,944 7.7

The following table shows the Twitter figures for October in full:

Website Twitter ‘followers’ M-o-M change (pc)
Birmingham Mail 121,585 3.9
Coventry Telegraph 40,659 3.5
Daily Post (Wales) 51,913 2.9
Huddersfield Daily Examiner 36,712 3
Liverpool Echo 253,844 3.4
Manchester Evening News 287,184 3
Newcastle Live 85,132 3.9
Teesside Evening Gazette 41,566 2.9
Wales Online 94,398 4.1

16 comments

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  • January 21, 2016 at 3:28 pm
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    And if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon

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  • January 21, 2016 at 8:14 pm
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    Bravo. Although I have ansolutely no idea what this means.

    I read the Hartlepool Mail website every day. For free. I’ve NEVER clicked on an advert and NEVER will.

    I rest my case.

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  • January 22, 2016 at 9:44 am
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    Seriously? Poor performances and poor excuses, time and time again.
    The bosses actually believe we buy this twaddle.

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  • January 22, 2016 at 9:53 am
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    Harry, what it means is that digital marketing people have lots of big numbers to justify their overpaid existences with. The real question is how the numbers translate into revenue and I suspect that’s a rather large pink elephant in the room.

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  • January 22, 2016 at 2:17 pm
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    Adrian’s right – and the pink elephant’s knocking back Tequila Slammers and singing Marlene Dietrich numbers. In another life I asked how these numbers translated into sustainable revenue 17 years ago… If anyone’s got an answer just send it here. Cheers.

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  • January 23, 2016 at 7:31 am
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    Hang on, anyone who has worked in regional newspapers knows that Christmas week is usually excluded from ABCs precisely because of the seasonal dip.

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  • January 23, 2016 at 10:51 am
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    Great set of figures. Another round of redundancies to celebrate?

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  • January 25, 2016 at 6:40 am
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    onvecagain I liken it to a shop celebrating the fact that lots of passers by have looked in their shop window but no ones come in to buy anything.
    Until someone produces hard and fast figures to show what the target revenue was, what was actually sold and how that compares against previous period and previous year , this kind of pointless crowing will be making less, web browsers don’t pay the bills.
    It’s as simple as that

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  • January 25, 2016 at 1:45 pm
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    I can see where “view over the car park” is coming from, although it isn’t ‘just people looking in the shop window.’ There are various revenue models in place on TM websites, including the payment by impressions served, so income is generated from the viewing of ads by readers. It’s just one model.

    Digital revenue is increasing all the time, so to say ‘there’s no revenue here’ or ‘web browsers don’t pay the bills’ is incorrect. Our challenge as an industry is to surely make sure we are available where the audience wants us to be available, and build revenue models on the back of that. And that’s what we’re doing. No-one can claim to have all the answers, but simply shouting ‘it’ll never work’ as so many on here like to isn’t going to get us very far.

    To Slate Grey’s suggestion that my comments were poor excuses for poor performance, I don’t think our December numbers were poor – they were very strong, with our local audience growth far out-stripping the global-level growth reported here.

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  • January 25, 2016 at 4:08 pm
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    That being the case Dave Higgerson please publish the actual revenue figures mentioned rather than just excitement over views to a site.
    Click per view is one method, paying for page impressions another, both are flawed as unlike any wholly direct response model both are intangible in showing/giving the advertiser actual ROI. Paying for page impressions is the worst as it simply charges the poor businessman every time someone goes onto the page, irrespective of whether they click through to the advert or whether it results in any sale and last until their bought number of clicks has been reached.
    it’s no different to charging a print advertiser each time a reader turned to the page their press ad was on, it’s no guarantee or measure of the sites effectiveness unless someone actually does business as a result.

    If anyone is brave enough in the regional press to implement a pay per click through >per resultant transaction then audience figures would be easier to swallow in proving the effectiveness of the website and giving the sales reps accurate and effective figures to sell to, rather than as at present where they just fudge their way through trying to impress / baffle the prospective advertiser with scant knowledge and an assurance that traffic figures are the be all and end all and therefore equates to direct revenue – it doesn’t
    Ps
    I speak from experience of having one of the so called big fours ‘digi reps’ ( not TM admittedly but I doubt they’re any different) stumble through god awful web presentations trying to sell my partner advertising on their sites with all questions answered by bs and buzz words without any substance or belief in what it was they were trying to sell,needless to say no sales were made.
    The reps don’t understand the digital sales offering and the sites themselves are not valued as credible and effective sales platforms and until they do no one will make money from them, certainly not enough to pay the bills , unless anyone can show revenue figures to the contrary?

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  • January 26, 2016 at 11:24 am
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    Word furnaceer, paying for impressions is not ‘the worst’. For regional and national businesses, it’s exceptionally valuable from a branding perspective. This is where the big bucks come from that are currently keeping many local newspapers open.

    My concern has always been that chasing these high-paying national brands leads to fewer opportunities for local businesses, especially when it comes to PPC, but you can’t blame TM for chasing a clearly valuable revenue stream.

    Having said that, a locally-owned news business wouldn’t have the same financial pressures from shareholders as TM does and could, if not swamped by national advertising, become a better platform for both local news and local advertsing. Bear in mind, these would be much, much smaller operations.

    I have no doubt that many will end up being forced down this route anyway but it would be interesting if David Higgerson could provide us with some details on the other models and whether they’re focused on national or local advertising. If nothing else, it may be useful to those who do have to venture out on their own in the future.

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  • January 26, 2016 at 4:33 pm
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    @oliver
    believe me there is no shortage of availability on local press websites for local businesses,the reality is that given the choice majority prefer a print ad which they are familiar with as oppoosed to a web ad that they are unsure and unconvinced about,

    @view over the car park is correct this is no different to a new car salesman saying the launch of car x has been a huge success as plenty of people have walked round it,kicked the tyres and looked at the brochure
    unless anyone hands over money its not effective,no one says my ad worked because lots of people looked at the page it was on,only if they can say i got x business as a result of spending Y

    As for Dave Higgerson saying “payment by impressions served, so income is generated from the viewing of ads by readers” isn`t correct
    advertisers pay up front for x page impressions which lasts until such time as the page impressions are all clicked out,nothing to do with the number of times an ad is viewed,a click counts each time a page is viewed
    Until people get direct response to web advertising it will be seen as an ineffectual medium to advertise on and the only digital revenues will come from businesses gullible enough to pay in advance for a presence in the belief that enough people will see and respond to it

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  • February 1, 2016 at 4:08 pm
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    southside johnnie, sorry, what I meant by opportunities is exactly what you suggest.

    Local businesses are used to print as they trust it. Impressions, reach and page views mean nothing to them. They want to see customers through the door, picking up the phone or visiting their website as a direct result of an online advert.

    At the moment, the TM model which is based around chasing impressions for national brands doesn’t help local business in this way. If the model was different it might do but who’s willing to have a go first?

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