Reach overtook the BBC to become the homegrown publisher with the biggest audience in the UK, according to data from the UKOM endorsed UK standard for online audience measurement.
Reach’s total audience across national brands including the Mirror, Express, Star and Daily Record as well as dozens of regional sites grew by 0.2% month-on-month to hit 38.1m people (76% reach) in November.
This put it ahead of the BBC (38m people) whose sites saw a 2.7% drop in audience compared to last month. Last month BBC was the leading publisher in the UK.
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Both publishers were, however, once again eclipsed by four US tech giants which were the only website publishers to reach more than 40m people in the UK in November. Alphabet, which includes Google’s home page for search and YouTube, was the leading online organisation reaching 49.5m people aged over 15 in the UK – 99% of people in the country who used the internet.
Sites by Meta – previously known as Facebook – which include Facebook and Instagram were the second most popular, reaching 48.8m people (98% of internet users over 15). Amazon reached 45.9m (reach of 92%) and Microsoft reached 40.6m people (reach of 81%).
Last month six organisations reached more than 75% of web users. In November NHS websites expanded this list of six sites to seven as more than 37m people (75% of internet users aged over 15) accessed an NHS site in November, likely spurred on by increasing interest in information about Covid-19 since the emergence of the Omicron variant.
Reach, the highest-ranked homegrown site, was also the highest ranked newsbrand in November, according to the Ipsos iris metric for measuring online audiences.
Three other newspaper brands made it into the top 20 – the same three as October. Mail Metro Media (whose online brands include MailOnline, Metro.co.uk and inews.co.uk) reached 30.8m people (62% reach), News UK sites were accessed by 29.2m people (59% reach) and The Independent and Evening Standard reached 21.4m people (43% reach). All three newsbrands saw month-on-month falls in audience with The Independent and Evening Standard recording the biggest drop at 5.7%. Reach was the only newsbrand in the top 20 to not see a smaller audience in November than October.
Media company Hearst, which counts Cosmopolitan.com and Harpersbazaar.com in its large portfolio of brands, reached 21.2m people (43%). Last month, Hearst saw the biggest month-on-month increase in visitors of any organisation among the top 20. In November however, the company’s audience shrank by 4.4%.
Future recorded one of the biggest month-on-month audience increases of the top 20 – second to only Sainsbury’s. The magazine publisher and media company’s online audience grew 6.8% in November to reach 20.9m.
Ipsos iris replaced Comscore as the industry-recognised standard this year. 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 data is combined with data from participating websites which are tagged so all devices visiting the site can be identified and logged.
This is the second in a new monthly series from Press Gazette that will track audience and reach of the UK’s leading online brands.
Read previous months’ coverage below.
October 2021
Four US tech giants are the only website publishers to reach more than 40m people in the UK each month, according to data from the UKOM endorsed UK standard for online audience measurement.
Alphabet websites which include Google’s home page for search and YouTube reached 49.7 million people aged over 15 in the UK in October – everyone in the country who used the internet.
Facebook sites which include Facebook and Instagram were the second most popular, reaching 48.7 million people (98% of internet users over 15), while Amazon reached 45.7 million (reach of 92%).
Only two other organisations reached more than 75% of web users. Microsoft sites reached 41.1 million people (82%), while 39.1 million people (78% of internet users over 15) accessed a BBC site in October. The BBC was also the highest-ranked news provider, although the data includes visitors to all BBC sites – not just its news pages.
The second-highest ranked news provider was Reach whose sites were accessed by up 38 million visitors (76% reach).
Three other newsbrands made it into the top 20, according to the Ipsos iris metric for measuring online audiences. Mail Metro Media (whose online brands include MailOnline, Metro.co.uk and inews.co.uk) reached 31.5 million people (63% reach), News UK sites were accessed by 29.6 million people over 15 (59% reach) and The Independent and Evening Standard reached 22.7 million people (45% reach).
Media company Hearst, which counts Cosmopolitan.com and Harpersbazaar.com in its large portfolio of brands) reached 22.2 million people (45%). The company saw the biggest month-on-month increase in visitors among the top 20 (October’s audience was 16% higher than September). The only other top 20 organisation to record a significant audience rise compared to September was The Independent and the Evening Standard (up 8%).
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