BBC director general Mark Thompson revealed in the latest edition of BBC in-house magazine, Ariel, that bbc.co.uk receives 27 million users each month.
Thompson said: “The website is an amazing media success, with 27 million users a month, but it has grown like Topsy and some parts are less focussed than others.”
Thompson does not specify, but it is likely that the figure takes into account only UK visitors.
Today’s Daily Telegraph suggests that the BBC is planning to make cuts to its website within months as part of a purge on costs.
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A source told the Telegraph: “The websites will be a big part of where savings can be made, however, the BBC has an obligation to keep certain parts of it, such as BBC iPlayer, BBC online news services and the popular education sites.”
The reasonable assumption is that some of the parts that are “less focused than others” will be for the chop – while this may dent the 27 million users of BBC.co.uk it’s unlikely to prevent it coming under increasing attack from newspaper groups unhappy with continually being dwarfed by the site.
The biggest newspaper site is guardian.co.uk with 12.9 million UK users and 35.8 million global unique users in November, according to ABC.
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MailOnline is the second most popular with 11.9 million domestic users and 31.2 million unique users worldwide.
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