Millions more people have read regional press titles in print and online during the first part of this year, according to new research.

Figures released by audience measurement firm PAMCo shows news consumption has soared during the first quarter of this year.

News industry trade body Newsworks has put the surge down to a desire for “trusted” sources of news as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

PAMCo’s research found 30.7 million people were reading national news titles in print and online daily – an increase of 4.5m when making a year-on-year comparison between April 2018-March 2019 and April 2019-March 2020.

When figures for the entire news sector is counted, which includes 39 regional dailies and their sister websites, the number of unique daily users increases to 39.6m – a 7.4m year-on-year increase overall.

The number of weekly readers for national newsbrands over the same period was just under 45m, rising to 48m when regional titles were included.

And the number of monthly readers was 47.6m for nationals and 49.2m for the entire sector.

The number of weekly and daily readers for the entire news sector had increased by 3m and 1m respectively when compared with the previous year.

Tracy De Groose, pictured, executive chair of Newsworks, said: “As the global pandemic took hold at the beginning of the year millions more readers turned to sources of news, analysis and information they knew they could trust.

“And encouragingly for our news brands and our journalism this was at a more frequent rate than ever before.

“All the indications suggest that this more regular daily demand for high quality journalism has continued into the second quarter of the year.”

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