According to Comscore’s latest data release, national news brands benefited from an average uplift of 17% year on year in December 2019.
December rounded off an encouraging year for news brands’ digital presence, recording some of their best results. According to Comscore’s latest data release, national news brands benefited from an average uplift of 17% year on year in December 2019. This caps off a year of consistent digital growth from news brands across views, minutes, and in mobile consumption.
With national news brands’ daily combined print and digital readership figures standing at 26 million readers (according to the latest PAMCo data), Comscore’s data further demonstrates the robustness of the British news brand industry alongside other traditional and digital media sources.
Mobile is particularly important when considering the decline of cookies as an advertising tool and the ever-increasing likelihood that consumers will interact with a news brand outside of the desktop experience. With an additional 4.4 million unique users on mobile, news brands experienced an uplift of 13% year on year in terms of unique viewers to their mobile platforms. This has also included on Apple News.
This means news brands have a greater opportunity than ever to provide a quality environment for advertisers that inspire trust and spark engagement. With some in the industry anticipating a swift return to the long-maligned digital practice of contextual advertising, news brands’ power to execute this keeps the industry relevant.
Both total views and minutes have also experienced robust growth over 2019. National news brands have enjoyed year on year average uplifts of 10% in total views and 11% in total minutes. This means that consumers are both spending more time consuming news brand content as well as viewing more pages over a given month.
Adverts on news brand websites are 2.5 times more likely to be viewed than on non-news brand site; with viewing time and frequency increasing, news brands are becoming even more attractive environments for advertisers to maximise engagement amongst digital news consumers.
The year has been full of moments that have united the country in conversation: political upheaval, national sporting success, and royal scandal to name a few. News brands were able to take advantage of these by staking their claim in the online conversation.
On the release of PAMCo’s latest data in December, Newsworks’ chair Tracy De Groose said: “News readership is at record levels – and it is still growing – as more and more people are demanding reliable and trusted sources of news, analysis and insight. To outperform the platforms across these audience metrics is impressive and as the digital world continues to shift the next phase of digital advertising is looking significantly brighter for publishers.”