Six of the ten biggest news websites did see their audience grow compared to August 2023.

But The Sun and Mail Online, which have traditionally battled it out as the biggest non-BBC news website in the UK, both saw decline.

The Sun was down 10% month-on-month and 7% year-on-year to 21.3 million while Mail Online was down 5% and 9% respectively to 21.1 million.

Three other news websites were close behind including Sky News which in July leaped from sixth to third place in our monthly ranking. In August the broadcaster’s website was down 10% month-on-month but up 15% compared to last August, reaching 20.5 million.

After Sky News was The Independent (20.5 million) and the Mirror (20 million).

To create this list, Press Gazette used Ipsos’ ranking of the top online brand groups and selected the 50 biggest that Press Gazette considers to be based in journalistic content of any genre.

The Ipsos iris data measures the total unduplicated number of people who used a brand’s websites and apps in a given month and includes all traffic, not necessarily just news. Reach and minutes for brands such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, which have a strong entertainment offering in addition to news content, will therefore be higher.

Just ten news websites across the entire top 50 recorded growth between July and August.

The biggest growth was at Business Insider (shown in the data as Springer Insider) and politics site Joe, both up month-on-month 22.5% to 4.1 million and 2.9 million respectively.

The biggest month-on-month decline in August was at Reach regional Gloucestershire Live, down 26% to 3 million, followed by ITV, down 25% to 12.6 million.

However Gloucestershire Live continued a run of growth when compared to 2023, up 152% year-on-year. It was followed by Tech Radar (up 95% to 3.8 million) and Forbes (up 94% to 7.7 million).

Audiences once again spent the most time with the BBC (9.7 billion minutes) followed by Yahoo! (1.8 billion) and Mail Online (1.5 billion). The same trio was top for page views, on 2.9 billion, 1.2 billion and 546 million respectively.

To create this top-50 list, Press Gazette used Ipsos’ ranking of the top online brand groups and selected the 50 biggest that Press Gazette considers to be based in journalistic content. Our list covers both consumer and industry (B2B) media. You can consult our list of 100 brands and read more about our criteria here.

Brands such as Apple and Google, while well-known names in news, are excluded from our list given the wide reach of their non-news content. Google News and Apple News are not reported by Ipsos as separate entities in brand level data.

Ipsos iris replaced Comscore as the industry-recognised standard in 2021. Ipsos iris data is partly derived from a panel of 10,000 people aged 15 and over that is designed to be nationally representative. The participants have meters installed across 25,000 personal devices to passively measure website and app usage. This is combined with data from participating websites that are tagged so all devices visiting the site can be identified and logged.

July 2024

Sky News leaped up the ranking of the biggest news websites in the UK in July, moving from sixth to third place in Press Gazette’s monthly ranking.

Sky News reported month-on-month growth of 10% and year-on-year growth of 22% for a monthly audience of 22.7 million people.

It was behind only the BBC (whose domain includes its entertainment content and not just news) on 40.3 million (up 3% month-on-month and 6% year-on-year) and The Sun on 23.7 million (up 1% compared to June and down 2% compared to July 2023).

Mail Online (22.2 million) returned to its former place ahead of the Mirror (22.1 million) after the Reach tabloid overtook it last month. They are now in fourth and fifth place respectively.

In a busy news month – July saw the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Joe Biden stepping down as presidential candidate, the UK general election, the end of the Euros and the start of the Olympics – 37 of the websites in our top 50 saw month-on-month growth, and 34 saw year-on-year growth.

Of the top ten biggest sites in July, six sites saw month-on-month growth and seven saw annual rises. Sky News and The Guardian (22 million) were both up 10% month-on-month, while on an annual basis The Telegraph led the way (18.3 million, up 32%).

Four of the top ten websites reported double-digit year-on-year growth, the same number as in June.

Conclusions should not be drawn regarding changes in places for publishers outside the top ten in this month’s list because Press Gazette has revised and slightly altered the websites included in the analysis.

To create this list, Press Gazette used Ipsos’ ranking of the top online brand groups and selected the 50 biggest that Press Gazette considers to be based in journalistic content of any genre.

The Ipsos iris data measures the total unduplicated number of people who used a brand’s websites and apps in a given month and includes all traffic, not necessarily just news. Reach and minutes for brands such as the BBC and ITV, which have a strong entertainment offering in addition to news content, will therefore be higher.

The biggest dips compared to the prior month were at Radio Times (5.8 million) and Reach regional website Gloucestershire Live (4 million), both down 8%.

Year-on-year, the top three audience declines were also Reach websites: Examiner Live (audience of 3.2 million, down 42%), Chronicle Live (3.6 million, down 25%) and the Daily Star (5.5 million, down 24%).

The biggest growth compared to June was at tech website Toms Guide (audience of 3.1 million, up 27%) and Reuters (4.3 million, up 24%).

Year-on-year, Gloucestershire was up 301% despite its more short-term dip. Forbes was up 129% to 7.5 million.

The Times and Sunday Times website (11.6 million) had a smaller audience in July than the Manchester Evening News (12.2 million), Birmingham Live (11.9 million) and Evening Standard (11.8 million) which were all smaller than the national brand in July 2023.

After a run of growth following its move to a .com website in March 2023, the GB News website (audience of 9.2 million) is now bigger than those of DMGT’s the i (9 million) or The New York Times (8.3 million).

Audiences spent the most time with the BBC (10.5 billion minutes) followed by Yahoo! (1.8 billion) and Mail Online (1.6 billion). The same trio was top for page views, on 3.2 billion, 1.3 billion and 574 million respectively.

The biggest month-on-month growth in minutes spent was at ITV (up 77% to 1.4 billion) followed by Hello! Magazine (up 20% to 42 million) and Unilad (up 18% to 5.7 million). The biggest drop was at CNN (down 26% to 15 million minutes).

Compared to July 2023, however, Unilad was down by three-quarters making it the biggest year-on-year drop. It was followed by Good Housekeeping (down 65% to 4.5 million) and the Daily Star (down 57% to 14.7 million).

Forbes almost doubled its monthly minutes in the past year, rising by 99% to 12.4 million in July. It was followed by Gloucestershire Live (up 85% to 6.7 million) and The New York Times (up 67% to 366 million minutes).

June 2024

The Mirror overtook Mail Online to become the UK’s third biggest newsbrand in June, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Monthly audience to Reach-owned Mirror was up 2% month-on-month to 22.5 million, helping it edge past Mail Online (audience of 22.3 million, down 3%), which before this month regularly occupied a top three spot in our ranking.

The Mirror also saw a smaller year-on-year decline than Mail Online, with the monthly audience to the news sites down 1% and 9% respectively compared to June 2023. For the Mail this was the largest annual decline in the top ten sites.

Mail Online also saw a large drop for the second consecutive month for minutes spent, according to data from Ipsos iris – down 4% month-on-month and 29% year-on-year to 1.4 billion minutes – now the joint second highest total minutes alongside ITV which grew by 77% month-on-month and 39% year-on-year.

A statement shared with Press Gazette by Mail Online publisher DMG Media said: “The seriously popular Mail Online is now bigger than ever before – bringing in hundreds of millions of readers, viewers and listeners with its unique blend of addictive content.

“The brand remains the number one commercial publisher for engagement, with substantially more page views and time spent on the website and app than any of its competitors.

“This once again demonstrates our exceptionally loyal and engaged audience, who in turn have enabled us to successfully launch a subscription proposition in recent months. 

“We are also dominating on Snapchat, Tiktok and Facebook, have a portfolio of award-winning podcasts and are releasing a new slate of original shows as we look to take Youtube by storm.

“The Mail has never had more users consuming its content across multiple platforms and looks forward to these significant milestones being recognised in future releases.”

The BBC remained top of the table as the newsbrand with the largest monthly audience in the UK, followed by The Sun (audience of 23.5 million) in second place, the Mirror in third, Mail Online in fourth and The Independent (21.1 million) in fifth – with The Guardian knocked out of fifth place into seventh (audience of 20.1 million) also behind Sky News (20.6 million).

The Ipsos iris data measures the total unduplicated number of people who used a brand’s websites and apps in a given month and includes all traffic, not necessarily just news. Reach and minutes for brands such as the BBC and ITV, which have a strong entertainment offering in addition to news content, will therefore be higher.

By month-on-month growth, June was also a strong month for ITV (audience of 17 million, up 15% compared to May), The Telegraph (17.2 million, up 14%) and Sky News (up 4%), which were the three fastest-growing names among the top ten newsbrands by audience size. As a result, ITV, which re-entered the top ten newsbrands by size of monthly audience in May in tenth position, climbed a further place to ninth in June in a month of position shifts at the top.

Four top ten newsbrands by audience size saw double-digit year-on-year growth in June: Metro (audience of 15.9 million, up 22%), The Telegraph (up 18%), Sky News (up 12%) and ITV (up 10%). The BBC was the remaining top ten newsbrand to see year-on-year growth in June as its audience was up 4% to 39.1 million.

For Metro, Sky News and ITV, June follows a similarly strong year-on-year performance in May, while The Telegraph, which saw its audience fall last month, reversed its fortunes.

Among the wider top 50, Reach’s Gloucestershire Live was again the fastest-growing newsbrand year-on-year. Audience to Gloucestershire Live was up 356% to 4.4 million people, followed by Forbes (6.6 million, up 95%) and Screenrant (4 million, up 63%).

Month-on-month among the whole top 50, LBG Group’s Unilad grew fastest (4 million, up 19% compared to May), followed by ITV, The Telegraph and Time Out (4.4 million, up 10%).

Audiences spent most time with the BBC (9.2 billion minutes) while The Guardian fell from third place behind Mail Online into fourth (898.5 million minutes) due to ITV’s growth.

As well as Mail Online, its rival The Sun (348.4 million minutes, down 31%) and The Guardian (down 19%) both saw large year-on-year falls in minutes spent with their content.

In contrast, paywalled brands continued to demonstrate strong growth in time spent. Audiences spent 810.3 million minutes with The Telegraph (up 38% year-on-year, surpassing its 23% growth in May), 569.8 million with The Times (up 38%) and 365.8 million with The New York Times (up 67%).

To create this top-50 list, Press Gazette used Ipsos’ ranking of the top online brand groups and selected the 50 biggest that Press Gazette considers to be based in journalistic content. Our list covers both consumer and industry (B2B) media. You can consult our list of 100 brands and read more about our criteria here.

Brands such as Apple and Google, while well-known names in news, are excluded from our list given the wide reach of their non-news content. Google News and Apple News are not reported by Ipsos as separate entities in brand level data.

Ipsos iris replaced Comscore as the industry-recognised standard in 2021. Ipsos iris data is partly derived from a panel of 10,000 people aged 15 and over that is designed to be nationally representative. The participants have meters installed across 25,000 personal devices to passively measure website and app usage. This is combined with data from participating websites that are tagged so all devices visiting the site can be identified and logged.

May 2024

ITV re-entered the top ten for audience reach among UK news websites in May, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Metro saw the biggest year-on-year growth in reach among the top ten newsbrands but Sky News was second by that metric as well as top of the month-on-month growth chart.

And on engagement, Mail Online and The Sun both saw drops of more than 30% in minutes spent compared to May last year.

Audience to the Metro website was up 17% year-on-year in May to 16.1 million people, according to data from Ipsos iris. 

It was followed by Sky News which also saw 10% growth compared to May 2023 to reach 19.7 million people.

In contrast, Mail Online (23 million, down 9% year-on-year) and The Telegraph (15.1 million, down 7%) saw the biggest falls among the top ten newsbrands by UK audience size. 

Month-on-month, the broadcasters also had a strong May with Sky News and ITV (14.8 million) topping the table for audience change among the top ten names, growing 9% compared to April. 

As a result, ITV re-entered the top ten sites by size of monthly audience in tenth place, edging Money Saving Expert down into twelfth position (audience of 14.1 million) behind the Daily Express (14.8 million) in eleventh. The rest of the top ten remained unchanged in a largely static month at the top. 

The Mirror (audience of 22.1 million, up 6% month-on-month), BBC (39.1 million, up 4%), The Sun (23.9 million, up 2%) and Mail Online (up 2%) were the remaining four top-ten newsbrands to reach more people in May than April

The BBC was unmoved from the top of the table as the newsbrand with the largest monthly audience in the UK, followed by The Sun in second place and Mail Online in third.

Among the wider top 50, Reach’s Gloucestershire Live and Irish Mirror were again the fastest-growing newsbrands year-on-year. Audience to Gloucestershire Live was up 293% to 4 million people, while the Irish Mirror was up 183% to 3.4 million. 

Business title Forbes doubled its audience (up 100% to 6.8 million) while entertainment newsbrand Joe also performed well in May with its audience rising to 3 million, up 78% year-on-year.

Screenrant (up 54% year-on-year), Bristol Live (up 51%),  Financial Times (up 47%), Birmingham Live (up 37%), TechRadar (up 30%) and the New York Times (up 20%) also grew in what was a strong month for many newsbrands – only 13 of the top 50 saw an audience drop compared to last May.

Month-on-month among the whole top 50, Gloucestershire Live was again the top performer (up 38%), followed by Unilad (3.4 million, up 32%) and the Financial Times (4.5 million, up 28%).

Audiences spent most time with the BBC (9.4 billion minutes) followed by Mail Online (1.5 billion minutes) and The Guardian (969.5 million minutes). 

Mail Online saw a large year-on-year fall in time spent with its content – down 30% compared to May 2023, as did rival The Sun (316.2 million minutes, down 39%).

In contrast, paywalled brands continued to demonstrate strong growth in time spent with their content. Audiences spent 761.4 million minutes with the Telegraph (up 23% year-on-year), 565.5 million with the Times & Sunday Times (up 40%) and 379.8 million with the New York Times (up 66%). 

To create this top-50 list, Press Gazette used Ipsos’ ranking of the top online brand groups and selected the 50 biggest that Press Gazette considers to be based in journalistic content. Our list covers both consumer and industry (B2B) media. You can consult our list of 100 brands and read more about our criteria here.

Brands such as Apple and Google, while well-known names in news, are excluded from our list given the wide reach of their non-news content. Google News and Apple News are not reported by Ipsos as separate entities in brand level data.

April 2024

The Independent fell back to sixth place in Press Gazette’s latest ranking of the biggest news websites in the UK after a strong March that saw it overtake the Mirror and The Guardian.

The Independent’s UK audience fell by 5% month-on-month in April to 19.7 million, according to the latest Ipsos iris data.

Meanwhile the Mirror moved back into fourth (audience of 21 million, up 1% month-on-month) and Guardian back into fifth (20.5 million, down 2% month-on-month).

DMGT’s Metro was however, the only top ten brand to see significant growth in audience compared to March, and was the fastest-growing top ten newsbrand in the UK, with its monthly audience up 15% year-on–year to 16.4 million people.

The Telegraph (15.9 million, up 3%) and Money Saving Expert (up 1%) were the remaining top ten newsbrands to make month-on-month gains.

Metro was also the fastest-growing newsbrand year-on-year with audience up and 16% compared to April 2023.

Second-fastest growing year-on-year was Martin Lewis’ consumer newsbrand Money Saving Expert (audience of 13.9 million, up 6%) while Sky News (18.1 million, up 2%) was third.

They were the only three top ten names to grow year-on-year in April. Instead several well-known names, among them Mail Online (audience of 22.5 million, down 9.1%), The Sun (23.4 million, down 11%) and the Mirror (21 million, down 13%), saw significant drops.

The BBC was unmoved from the top of the table as the newsbrand with the largest monthly audience in the UK at 37.8 million people, followed by The Sun in second place and Mail Online in third.

Among the wider top 50, Reach’s Gloucestershire Live and Irish Mirror both more than doubled their audiences compared to April last year. Audience to Gloucestershire Live was up 184% to 2.9 million, while the Irish Mirror’s audience was up 152% to 3.3 million.

A number of other newsbrands also saw growth of over 50% year-on-year in April, among them Forbes (audience of 6.7 million, up 86% year-on-year), People (3 million, up 76% and Future-owned Tech Radar (3.6 million, up 58%).

Many of the same names also performed strongly month-on-month with visitors to the Irish Mirror up 34% compared to March, up 27% at Forbes and up 24% at Tech Radar.

Looking at engagement, audiences spent most time with the BBC (9.4 billion minutes) followed by Mail Online (1.5 billion minutes) and The Guardian (904 million minutes) although the latter fell below the one billion mark.

Paywalled brands again punched above their weight on time spent with their content compared to the size of their total reach with The Telegraph ranked eighth for reach but coming fifth for time spent at 762.4 million minutes – up both month-on-month (6%) and year-on-year (61%).

The Times and Sunday Times, which ranked 13th for audience, came in sixth for a second month in a row by total time spent with its digital content (599.5 million minutes).

To create this top-50 list, Press Gazette used Ipsos’ ranking of the top online brand groups and selected the 50 biggest that Press Gazette considers to be based in journalistic content. Our list covers both consumer and industry (B2B) media. You can consult our list of 100 brands and read more about our criteria here.

Brands such as Apple and Google, while well-known names in news, are excluded from our list given the wide reach of their non-news content. Google News and Apple News are not reported by Ipsos as separate entities in brand level data.

March 2024

The Independent’s audience was up 8% month-on-month in March, leading to it jumping from sixth to fourth place in Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking of the biggest news websites in the UK.

The Independent’s monthly audience was up to 21 million, meaning it has leapfrogged the Mirror (20.7 million) and The Guardian (20.8 million) to reach fourth place for the first time since Press Gazette started using Ipsos iris data for this ranking.

The Mirror fell from fourth to sixth place, with a month-on-month drop of 3% compared to The Guardian’s 2% growth.

The Independent’s growth was the joint-highest in the top ten with The Telegraph in ninth place, which was also up 8% month-on-month to 15.5 million.

Mail Online (audience of 22.7 million, up 6%) and Metro (14.3 million, up 5%) also saw audiences that were at least 5% bigger than in February. ITV (audience of 14 million) and the Mirror saw the biggest falls, at 3% each.

Year-on-year, the UK’s biggest newsbrands saw a much slower month with all but The Independent (up 8% year-on-year) seeing smaller audiences in March 2024 compared with the same month in 2023.

ITV (down 18% year-on-year), Mirror (down 17%), Metro (down 15%), The Sun (audience of 23.7 million, down 15%) and The Guardian (down 14%) all saw-double digit drops.

Among the wider top 50, Gloucestershire Live, ranked 39th, more than doubled its audience year-on-year reaching 3.9 million people – up 139% compared to March 2023.

It was followed by Forbes (5.3 million, up 44% year-on-year) and Canadian-based entertainment news site Screenrant (3.9 million, up 38%).

Reach regional sites, Bristol Live (audience of 4.9 million, up 8%) and Birmingham Live (11 million, up 7%) saw the next biggest year-on-year growth.

We have not included GB News in the above chart. Its audience was up 3,515% year-on-year however, this is due in part to the fact that GB News launched a new dotcom URL last year meaning that not all growth will be organic.

Compared to February, women’s lifestyle publisher Cosmopolitan saw the largest boost to its audience – up 42% month-on-month to 3.8 million.

It was followed by Yorkshire Live (4.9 million, up 33%) and CNN (3.5 million, up 31%). Yorkshire Live (also known as Examiner Live) was one of five Reach websites, three of which are regional brands, in the fastest-growing sites month-month, along with OK (5.2 million, up 23% month-on-month), Gloucestershire Live (up 15%), Daily Express (13.2 million, up 13%) and Manchester Evening News (11 million, up 13%).

The BBC remained top of the table for overall audience (38 million), although Ipsos’ data measures the total unduplicated number of people who used a brand’s websites and apps in a given month and includes all traffic, not necessarily just news. Reach and minutes for brands such as the BBC and ITV, which have a strong entertainment offering in addition to news content, will therefore be higher.

The Sun was again the second largest newsbrand and the top commercial name (23.7 million), followed by Mail Online.

Audiences also spent most time with the BBC (9.4 billion minutes), followed by Mail Online (1.6 billion minutes) and The Guardian (1 billion minutes).

The Guardian overtook ITV (893 million minutes) which fell into fourth place. Total time spent with The Guardian was up 29% year-on-year and 5% month-on-month. ITV in contrast recorded a 25% fall compared to February.

Paywalled brands again punched above their weight on time spent with their content compared to the size of their total reach with The Telegraph coming fifth for time spent (719 minutes) compared to eighth for reach.

The Times and Sunday Times, which ranked 13th for audience, came in sixth for total time spent with its digital content (633.2 million minutes), up one place from February, while The New York Times, ranked 23rd for audience reach, came in eighth for minutes spent (371.5 million).

To create this top-50 list, Press Gazette used Ipsos’ ranking of the top online brand groups and selected the 50 biggest that Press Gazette considers to be based in journalistic content. Our list covers both consumer and industry (B2B) media. You can consult our list of 100 brands and read more about our criteria here.

Brands such as Apple and Google, while well-known names in news, are excluded from our list given the wide reach of their non-news content. Google News and Apple News are not reported by Ipsos as separate entities in brand level data.

February 2024

None of the ten biggest news websites in the UK saw a bigger audience in February than in January, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

ITV saw the biggest fall among the top sites by audience size, down 7% compared to January (14.4 million) according to data from Ipsos iris. It was followed by Mail Online (audience of 21.4 million), Sky News (17.7 million) and the Mirror (21.3 million), which each saw a 6% month-on-month fall in audience.

This trend was in contrast to January, when all but three of the top ten newsbrands grew their audiences month-on-month.

Year-on-year the picture was the same for the top ten brands with each recording declines compared to last February. Seven saw double-digit drops including Metro (with 13.6 million unique visitors in February) seeing the largest year-on-year fall at 15%. Sky News, the Guardian (audience of 20 million) and the BBC (37.6 million) saw falls of less than 10%.

Among the wider top 50, a Reach regional newsbrand recorded the largest month-on-month growth in audience for the second month in a row. Audience to Gloucestershire Live was up 20% in February to 3.4 million, echoing Bristol Live’s gain in January, and leading to it re-enter the top 50 in 37th place. LBC (audience of 4.3 million) shared first spot with Gloucestershire Live, also up 20% month-on-month.

They were followed by Irish Mirror (audience of 2.7 million, up 16% month-on-month) and another Reach brand, Yorkshire Live (3.7 million, up 13%).

Two newsbrands just outside of the top ten, The Evening Standard (ranked 15 with an audience of 10.9 million, up 9% month-on-month) and The Times and Sunday Times (rank 12, 12.1 million, up 5%), also grew monthly in February.

Year-on-year, relative newcomer GB News, which launched a dotcom url last year, saw the fastest growth in the top 50. Audience to the newsbrand was up 167% compared to February 2023 at 9 million people. It was followed by Gloucestershire Live (up 130% year-on-year) and People (2.9 million, up 59%).

The BBC remained top of the table for overall audience, although Ipsos’ data measures the total unduplicated number of people who used a brand’s websites and apps in a given month and includes all traffic, not necessarily just news. Reach and minutes for brands such as the BBC and ITV, which have a strong entertainment offering in addition to news content, will therefore be higher.

The Sun remained the second largest newsbrand and the top commercial name (23.4 million), followed by Mail Online (21.4 million), the Mirror (21.3 million), and The Guardian (20 million) in an order unchanged from last month.

Audiences also spent most time with the BBC (10.7 billion minutes), followed by Mail Online (1.6 billion minutes), and ITV (1.2 billion minutes), with BBC and Mail Online both seeing falls of 11% and 12% respectively in time spent with their content compared to January.

Paywalled brands again punched above their weight on time spent with their content compared to the size of their total reach. The Times and Sunday Times, which ranked 12th for audience, came in seventh for total time spent with its digital content (572.6 million minutes), while The New York Times, ranked 21st for audience reach, came in ninth for minutes spent (323.6 million).

To create this top-50 list, Press Gazette used Ipsos’ ranking of the top online brand groups and selected the 50 biggest that Press Gazette considers to be based in journalistic content. Our list covers both consumer and industry (B2B) media. You can consult our list of 100 brands and read more about our criteria here.

Brands such as Apple and Google, while well-known names in news, are excluded from our list given the wide reach of their non-news content. Google News and Apple News are not reported by Ipsos as separate entities in brand level data.

January 2024

Money Saving Expert and The Telegraph saw month-on-month double-digit growth of their audiences in January, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

Martin Lewis’ consumer newsbrand reached an audience of 14.2 million in January, up 20% compared to December, while audience at the Telegraph was up 10% to 15.2 million.

They were among seven of the top ten newsbrands by audience size that saw more visitors in January compared to December, according to data from Ipsos iris. Sky News (18.8 million visitors, up 6% month-on-month) saw the third fastest-growth.

Mail Online (22.8 million visitors) and The Sun (24.3 million) were the only two top ten newsbrands to see monthly falls in traffic. Traffic to Mail Online’s websites and apps was down slightly by 2%, while down by 1% for The Sun.

Compared to January 2023, all of the ten biggest newsbrands except Sky News saw their audiences fall year-on-year.

The Mirror (22.6 million people, down 11%) and The Telegraph (down 10%) recorded the largest drops. Sky News saw a slightly year-on-year audience boost (up 2%) while the BBC’s audience was unchanged.

Among the wider top 50, Reach’s Bristol Live saw the biggest monthly gain in audience (5.3 million people, up 29%), followed by health newsbrand Web MD (4.7 million, up 27%) and the Financial Times (3.7 million, up 24%).

The BBC remained top of the table for overall audience with 38 million unique visitors in January, although Ipsos’ data measures the total unduplicated number of people who used a brand’s websites and apps in a given month and includes all traffic, not necessarily just news. Reach and minutes for brands such as the BBC and ITV, which have a strong entertainment offering in addition to news content, will therefore be higher.

The Sun remained the second largest newsbrand and the top commercial name, followed closely by Mail Online, the Mirror, and The Guardian (21.2 million).

The BBC was also top for total time spent with its website and apps in January (10.9 billion minutes), followed by Mail Online (1.8 billion minutes), and ITV (1.2 billion).

Despite coming in 25th place for reach (7.3 million people), The New York Times made the top ten for time spent, coming in ninth position as its audience spent 338.3 million minutes with its paywalled content during the month.

Year-on-year once again GB News, which launched a new .com URL in March last year, saw the biggest growth with an audience of 8.7 million, up 195% compared to January. While not all growth will be organic, the publisher has invested in ramping up its digital presence.

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