Former Local World daily the Cambridge News marked a year since it began submitting monthly digital audience figures by topping October’s ABCe charts.
The News recorded the highest year-on-year increase in daily average unique browsers from among all Trinity Mirror dailies, with a figure of 85,318 representing a 108.2pc rise.
Last month the News received international recognition after papers released about the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 revealed claims a senior reporter at the newspaper received an anonymous phone call minutes before the US President’s death.
The caller allegedly told the unidentified journalist to “call the American Embassy in London for some big news” around 25 minutes before the killing.
The Cambridge News front page from three days after JFK’s death
The News also topped October’s charts for Facebook engagement, with a 119.1 increase in followers compared with the corresponding period last year.
On Twitter, the Birmingham Mail recorded its ninth consecutive table-topping performance in a row, with a 34.8pc increase in the number of followers it has gained on the social network.
Average daily unique browsers for each newsbrand are as follows:
| Product | Daily users | MoM% | YoY% |
| Birmingham Mail | 410,760 | 10.8 | 43.6 |
| Bristol Post | 149,941 | -19.3 | N/A |
| Cambridge News | 85,318 | 6.0 | 108.2 |
| Chronicle Live (Newcastle) | 286,750 | 9.0 | 14.5 |
| Coventry Telegraph | 131,007 | 28.1 | 75.6 |
| Daily Post (Wales) | 131,037 | 1.7 | 46.9 |
| Derby Telegraph | 93,605 | 9.2 | N/A |
| Gazette Live (Teesside) | 121,355 | 3.0 | 3.9 |
| Get Reading | 52,477 | 3.3 | 5.0 |
| Get Surrey | 83,221 | 11.9 | 71.3 |
| Grimsby Telegraph | 48,993 | 0.8 | 19.2 |
| Huddersfield Daily Examiner | 77,388 | -3.3 | 33.6 |
| Hull Daily Mail | 148,507 | 7.3 | 27.4 |
| Leicester Mercury | 99,366 | 11.7 | 53.0 |
| Liverpool Echo | 601,372 | -3.4 | 12.2 |
| Manchester Evening News | 817,118 | -1.1 | 7.7 |
| Nottingham Post | 115,791 | -0.9 | N/A |
| Plymouth Herald | 98,376 | -0.8 | N/A |
| The Sentinel, Stoke | 99,599 | 5.4 | 23.9 |
| Trinity Mirror Regional Network | 4,655,783 | 2.3 | 24.5 |
| Visiter (Southport) | 13,862 | -22.9 | -0.4 |
| Wales Online | 439,801 | 7.9 | 26.9 |
Numbers of Facebook likes for each newsbrand are as follows:
| Product | Likes | MoM% | YoY% | |||
| Birmingham Mail | 295,479 | 1.4 | 23.2 | |||
| Bristol Post | 143,029 | 2.3 | N/A | |||
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119.1 | |||
| Chronicle Live (Newcastle) | 260,071 | 1.5 | 23.6 | |||
| Coventry Telegraph | 56,098 | 5.0 | 51.1 | |||
| Daily Post (Wales) | 201,987 | 1.1 | 29.6 | |||
| Derby Telegraph | 62,892 | 3.0 | N/A | |||
| Grimsby Telegraph | 43,231 | 2.7 | 30.2 | |||
| Huddersfield Daily Examiner | 97,895 | 1.5 | 24.7 | |||
| Hull Daily Mail | 145,886 | 1.6 | 21.0 | |||
| Leicester Mercury | 67,189 | 3.2 | 43.6 | |||
| Liverpool Echo | 1,213,996 | 0.4 | 6.7 | |||
| Manchester Evening News | 1,509,295 | 0.9 | 24.6 | |||
| Nottingham Post | 101,219 | 1.9 | N/A | |||
| Plymouth Herald | 110,570 | 1.3 | N/A | |||
| Teesside Evening Gazette | 119,837 | 0.9 | 15.7 | |||
| The Sentinel, Stoke | 97,042 | 1.7 | 22.6 | |||
| Visiter (Southport) | 17,541 | 1.9 | 39.7 | |||
| Wales Online | 430,615 | 2.5 | 33.3 |
Numbers of Twitter followers for each newsbrand are as follows:
| Product | Followers | MoM% | YoY% |
| Birmingham Mail | 257,457 | 1.5 | 34.8 |
| Bristol Post | 117,839 | 1.4 | N/A |
| Cambridge News | 77,401 | 1.5 | 28.1 |
| Chronicle Live (Newcastle) | 160,111 | 1.3 | 29.7 |
| Coventry Telegraph | 75,735 | 1.3 | 28.4 |
| Daily Post (Wales) | 86,653 | 1.3 | 25.1 |
| Derby Telegraph | 68,262 | 1.1 | N/A |
| Grimsby Telegraph | 15,487 | 0.8 | 11.8 |
| Huddersfield Daily Examiner | 54,581 | 0.8 | 17.5 |
| Hull Daily Mail | 74,165 | 1.2 | 27.8 |
| Leicester Mercury | 98,306 | 1.2 | 27.2 |
| Liverpool Echo | 379,731 | 0.9 | 21.1 |
| Manchester Evening News | 504,949 | 1.2 | 31.4 |
| Nottingham Post | 131,768 | 1.2 | N/A |
| Plymouth Herald | 54,515 | 1.0 | N/A |
| Teesside Evening Gazette | 72,809 | 1.2 | 26.3 |
| The Sentinel, Stoke | 69,847 | 1.6 | 33.9 |
| Visiter (Southport) | 9,523 | 0.6 | 10.5 |
| Wales Online | 189,772 | 1.8 | 33.6 |
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A great shame that the News scarcely sells 10,000 copies a day now. Still, who cares about that when all those fee-paying web users are clicking on amusing cat stories and endless ‘everything you need to know’ articles.
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Hold the Front Page comments bingo. Tick each of these off as you see them:
* Pointing out that web/social media data is meaningless.
* Bemoaning that a once-great newspaper no longer sells as many copies as it used to.
* Comment from someone who obviously doesn’t understand digital revenue models.
* Someone talking about clickbait or chasing clicks, usually in reference to something that isn’t clickbait.
* Scornful reference to cat videos or Kim Kardashian (despite absence of evidence about frequency of such things).
* Failure to understand that online readers like good stories, just like print readers, and that data can offer useful insight into reader habits.
* Unhelpful “digital doesn’t work” comment, with no context, analysis or insight.
* Badly written post full of spelling and grammatical errors complaining about standard of sub-editing.
* Sarcastic “look at all the things I can buy with that social media engagement” comment.
* Total absence of comment on the actual content of the story (well done to the Cambridge News and Birmingham Mail).
10 points for each answer. The winner gets to spend a day watching Mustard TV with Ashley Highfield.
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Horrid fact is that paper circulations are plunging as more readers stop paying to buy and simply free read a lot of the news online. Just glad I worked in happier times when newsrooms were much better staffed and most of the time we got a real buzz out of contributing to a big circulation paper crammed with real news and not frothy rhubarb items which many thinning weeklies carry now.
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Zenithar – you’d be watching Mustard TV on YouTube now – it’s replacement on Freeview Channel 7 is That’s Norfolk TV, which runs the same half-hour ‘news’ programme on endless repeat across the day. Not so much low budget as no budget…
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That makes the prize even better…
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I actually quite agree with Zenithar (not sure if that’s your first name or your surname) regarding the standard of spelling and grammar on here. With friends like these, subs really don’t need enemies.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Zenithar has some connection with TM, since I hear echoes of David Higgerson’s by now somewhat wearisome mantra (vide Humpty Dumpty) that clickbait means what he says it means, not what everyone else says it means. And it’d be lovely if Zenithar would be good enough to explain digital revenue models to us, since no one else seems prepared to.
The online data does indeed give us useful insight into reader habits; it tells us that people prefer not paying for something to paying for it. Who knew?
The version of HTFP Comments Bingo we play round at our house is slightly different; in ours, we tick off all the different ways which Zenithar, Oliver et al. find to avoid answering the question of when digital is ever going to make any money.
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