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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
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Where will readers go with no News of the World?
July 08, 2011
The revelations of the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World have attracted many headlines in the media this week. Online there was a 9% increase in UK Internet visits to our News and Media category between 30 June and 7 July as people searched for news of the unfolding events.
You can see from the graph above that the spike in visits to the News and Media category that the News of the World scandal is the biggest news story to drive visits to the category in the last three months. Whilst not as big as the April spike during the Royal Wedding, this is nevertheless a very significant news story attracting attention online.
This Sunday (10 July) will be the last issue of the News of the World and the indications are that online this will be the biggest Sunday ever for traffic to the NOTW website. In the build up to Sunday, visits have already increased 10-fold and if this trend continues, NOTW could go out with a bang.
Once the News of the World has gone, the next question is where will the readership go to get their news? The expectation is that News International will create a “Sun on Sunday” to fill the void left by the News of the World. You can see that daily traffic to The Sun dips every Sunday which also corresponds to the peak in traffic to the NOTW website. The Sun would be a natural choice to benefit from ex-NOTW readers.
However, rumours about the launch of a “Sun on Sunday” are just that – rumours. Even if they turn out to be true, it will take a while for a new title to be launched leaving a short term gap in the market on Sundays. Our data suggests that the Daily Mail is the newspaper most likely to pick up the News of the World’s readership. The websites of the two newspapers already have a close affinity as the Daily Mail is the number one website in the downstream traffic visited after NOTW. In June, 5.25% of all visits leaving the NOTW site went straight to the Daily Mail, compared to 4.76% which went to The Sun and 2.11% to the Mirror.
Interestingly, when using Mosaic to profile the audiences that visit the websites of the News of the World, The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Mirror, the online audiences of the NOTW and The Sun are most closely aligned, whereas the NOTW and Daily Mail audiences are quite different. Daily Mail readers for example skew to the more affluent Alpha Territory and Professional Rewards groups, whereas NOTW readers skew more towards young families in New Homemakers and Terraced Melting Pot.
Based on this audience segmentation analysis, the natural conclusion would be that a “Sun on Sunday” would be most likely to acquire the NOTW readership. However, the Daily Mail and The Mirror can also expect to see increases in traffic in the short term as audiences look for new outlets to find their Sunday news online.
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In Categories News and Media
I think that these kind of newspapers must be eradicated as soon as possible!
Posted by Pariuri Sportive | July 9, 2011 05:14 PM