March 4, 2025

50 biggest UK news websites Jan 2025: Express audience up by a third in past year

Press Gazette's monthly ranking of the top 50 news websites in the UK.

Homepages of Express, Telegraph and Yahoo! plus health stories partway down Surrey Live homepage on 4 March 2025.

The Express grew its UK audience by a third between January 2024 and 2025, according to the latest data from industry-recognised Ipsos iris.

Express.co.uk was up by 32% year on year and 8% month on month to reach 17.1 million people in January, making it the ninth biggest news website in the country.

The Express is said to be in “the next phase of its evolution” following a leadership shake-up in the second half of 2024.

Just six news websites in Press Gazette’s monthly top-50 ranking saw bigger annual growth, of which five were regional brands also owned by parent company Reach and the sixth was Forbes.

See our monthly rankings for the top 50 most popular news websites in the world and in the US.

With 136.9 million page views, Reach noted that the Express also “recorded its best page view month since July 2024, when it enjoyed a record-setting best ever month”.

Of the ten biggest news websites in the UK, eight saw month-on-month growth from December to January while half grew year on year.

Eight out of the ten biggest websites saw the minutes spent with their content decline between January 2024 and 2025. However all ten sites saw month-on-month growth in their minutes spent, indicating a more recent upwards trajectory.

The biggest year-on-year decline in minutes spent among the ten biggest sites was at The Guardian, down 28% to 761.3 million.

The Telegraph bucked the trend, with minutes up 20% year on year (and 10% month on month) to 883.6 million. It is the fifth biggest news website by total minutes spent even though it is tenth for total audience (15.6 million people in January).

The other exception was news aggregator Yahoo!, with total minutes spent in January up 16% (and 4% month on month) to 1.9 billion.

Of the ten sites, the biggest month-on-month growth in minutes spent was at Express sister title the Mirror, up 16% to 236.2 million minutes.

The biggest growth in minutes spent overall came at Reach regionals: Bristol Live on a month-on-month basis (up 56% to eight million) and Surrey Live year on year (up 202% to 5.6 million).

The biggest annual growth in audience was similarly at Surrey Live with a reach of 4.4 million people, up 320% in a year. Reach chief executive Jim Mullen noted in the company's annual results on Tuesday that this growth was largely down to content coming from its central content hub helping it to build a "strong audience in health and wellness".

On a month-on-month basis two Reach regionals again were top of the table for growth with Bristol Live up 60% to an audience of 5.7 million people in January and the Examiner Live in Huddersfield up 32% to 4.8 million. Behind them were the Financial Times (up 25% to 4.4 million) and Reuters (up 24% to 4.1 million).

David Higgerson, Reach’s chief digital publisher, said: “Building on a strong end to 2024, it’s great to see that over half of our sites are now in page view growth, year on year. What’s particularly meaningful about these numbers is not just that we’re getting more page views overall, but that our audience is choosing to come back to us more often, with page views per user up by 32%.

“It’s a very positive sign too that we’re attracting more under-35s, in large part thanks to more young people finding our content off platform.

“This is testament to a lot of the work that our teams have put into producing engaging content across a range of channels. The success of our Content Hub has also allowed our brands to spend more time deepening their relationships with their audiences, which we can see now bearing fruit.”

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.

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.

December 2024

Mail Online grew its UK audience in December, returning it to the top spot as the biggest individual commercial news publisher for both reach and engagement.

Mail Online’s audience was 21 million, up 15% month on month though down 9% year on year, according to the latest monthly data from Ipsos iris.

A total of 1.4 billion minutes were spent with the site in the UK in December, up 3% month on month though down 9% compared to December 2023. It was also the top individual commercial newsbrand for page views (516.9 million).

It was beaten by the licence fee-funded BBC on every metric, while aggregator Yahoo! also continued to be higher for minutes spent (1.9 billion) and page views (1.2 billion). The BBC’s figures include its non-news, entertainment content.

Mail publisher DMG Media’s chief executive and publisher Danny Groom said the brand has "always been the number one when it comes to the key metrics; engagement, loyalty and page views" and added: “There have never been more eyeballs on The Mail’s content across all platforms and we look forward to seeing this growth continue.”

Mail Online saw the second-largest month-on-month audience growth among the top ten biggest news websites in the UK. It was beaten only by the Daily Express, which was up 17% compared to November to 15.9 million, taking it from 12th place to ninth, as well as up 35% year on year.

It was a strong month for the major tabloids with The Mirror jumping from fifth place to third (up 8% month on month to 19.9 million) and The Sun (up 4% month on month to 19.5 million) in fourth place back above The Independent and The Guardian.

Six of the ten biggest sites in the UK saw month-on-month growth and five were up compared to last year.

The biggest drops were The Guardian, down 5% month on month to 18.5 million, and The Sun, down 20% year on year to 19.5 million.

The biggest month-on-month growth in minutes spent was seen by Lancs Live (up 59% to 4.3 million) and Leeds Live (up 56% to 6 million). Both also saw the biggest month-on-month growth: Leeds Live was up 35% to 3.9 million while Lancs Live was up 32% to 4.4 million

Of sites with more than 100 minutes spent in the month, Immediate Media’s Good Food (up 20% to 144.2 million minutes) and The New York Times (up 12% to 427.3 million) saw the biggest month-on-month boost in engagement.

Compared to the same month last year, Channel 4 (which includes non-news content) was down 29% to 516.7 million minutes while Digital Spy was down 22% to 11.1 million.

The six biggest sites for month-on-month audience growth in December were all owned by Reach.

The pair were also among the top for year-on-year growth (Leeds Live up 142% and Lanc Live up 108%) beaten only by fellow Reach regional title Surrey Live (up 321% to 4.6 million).

November 2024

The Independent was the UK’s biggest commercial news website by audience size for the first time in November, according to the latest data from Ipsos iris.

The title overtook The Guardian to take second place in our top-50 monthly audience ranking of the UK’s news websites for November. However, in terms of engagement (time spent with the title) it ranks only 14th in the UK.

The Independent had an audience of 19.6 million in November, behind the BBC on 38.8 million and ahead of The Guardian on 19.4 million. The BBC’s audience figures include its entertainment output, not just its news site.

Completing the top five were The Sun (18.8 million) and the Mirror (18.4 million) with Mail Online falling just outside in sixth place with 18.2 million.

All of the top five commercial news providers saw a drop in their audience compared to November 2023, although the BBC was up 3% year-on-year. The biggest declines were at Mail Online (down 22%) and The Sun (down 20%).

The Independent ranked 14th for total minutes spent with its content across November (145.7 million) and 17th for average minutes per person (7.43).

The top three websites for two key engagement metrics were BBC (8.9 billion minutes and 2.9 billion page views), aggregator Yahoo! (1.9 billion minutes and 1.2 billion page views) and Mail Online (1.4 billion and 481.9 million respectively).

The biggest growth in time spent was at Which? (up 42% month-on-month to 30.2 million minutes) and Surrey Live (up 259% year-on-year to 5.8 million minutes) – a Reach regional website that also saw a massive jump in audience in the past year, up 345% to 4.5 million people. However Surrey Live’s average minutes spent per user dropped in the year, from 1.58 to 1.3.

The largest drops in time spent were at fellow Reach regional Lancs Live (down 32% month-on-month to 2.7 million minutes spent) and Reach national the Daily Star (down 53% year-on-year to 10.9 million minutes).

Fourteen (or 28%) of the top 50 saw growth in their time spent metric in November compared to the month before, while just under half (22) grew compared to a year earlier.

There was a higher level of growth when looking at the websites’ audience size: 29 of the 50 grew month-on-month, and 25 were up year-on-year.

Other than Surrey Live, the biggest year-on-year audience growth was at Nottinghamshire Live (up 81% to 4.7 million). Forbes (up 63% to 6.1 million) was the only non-Reach regional to be in the top five for annual growth for the second month in a row.

Month-on-month, Nottinghamshire Live was the only site with growth of more than a quarter (up 38%).

October 2024

The Sun fell out of the top five biggest news websites in the UK in October, according to the latest data from Ipsos iris.

The News UK tabloid, which had frequently been in second place behind the BBC until recent months, has dropped to sixth place with an audience of 18.4 million.

The Sun’s monthly audience fell by 22% year-on-year in October and, although it saw growth compared to September as did the rest of the top ten, it saw the smallest rise of 0.5%.

The top three news sites in October were the BBC (38.2 million), The Guardian (19.8 million) and The Independent (19.4 million).

Mail Online (18.9 million) and Sky News (18.5 million) made up the rest of the top five.

The biggest month-on-month growth in the top ten was at Sky News (up 14%) while Yahoo! saw the highest increase on an annual basis (up 26% to 16.9 million).

The fact that all ten sites grew month-on-month in October was a stark contrast to the previous month when they all fell compared to August.

The biggest decline among the top ten sites was at Mail Online, down 24% year-on-year.

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.

Among the whole top 50, Reach regional Surrey Live saw a massive jump both month-on-month (up 263%) and year-on-year (up 351%) to an audience of 4.5 million (compared to a county population of around 1.2 million).

There were four Reach regional sites in both the top ten sites for month-on-month and year-on-year growth.

The top month-on-month list also featured Bristol Live (up 41% month-on-month to 3.9 million), Nottinghamshire Live (up 41% to 3.4 million) and Lancs Live (up 23% to 4.1 million).

Year-on-year Devon Live grew by 78% to 3.4 million, Lancs Live was up 70% and Gloucestershire Live was up 54% to 3.6 million.

Reach audience director (distribution and customer marketing) Martin Little told Press Gazette last month Google Discover has become its “biggest referrer of traffic” and that almost half of all of its websites are in year-on-year growth partly due to Google changes.

All but seven of the top 50 sites grew month-on-month, although more than half (30) declined compared to October 2023.

The biggest drops were at Business Insider (down 13% month-on-month to 3.1 million) and the Daily Star (down 62% year-on-year to 3.2 million).

Looking at engagement metrics, Yahoo! crossed the two billion total minutes mark with 12% growth both month-on-month and year-on-year.

The Telegraph saw strong growth (up 10% month-on-month and 42% year-on-year) to become the fourth biggest site by total monthly minutes (844.6 million) behind the BBC (8.8 billion), Yahoo! and Mail Online (1.5 billion).

Thirty-two of the sites saw a drop in minutes spent compared to October 2023, although just ten were down compared to September. The biggest drops were at Business Insider (down 22% month-on-month) and the Daily Star (down 53% year-on-year).

September 2024

More than three-quarters of the 50 biggest news websites in the UK saw their audiences fall in September compared to August.

The biggest month-on-month audience declines in September were at three national news websites: the Daily Star (3.1 million, down 28%), the i (6.8 million, down 23%) and Sky News (16.3 million, down 20%) according to the latest data from Ipsos iris.

The four websites to see the biggest year-on-year drops are all owned by Reach: the Daily Star was down 60%, followed by Bristol Live (2.8 million, down 41%), Liverpool Echo (5.3 million, down 32%) and Yorkshire’s Examiner Live (3.2 million, down 30%).

However the biggest month-on-month growth was at two Reach regional sites: Lancs Live (3.4 million, up 25%) and Devon Live (3.3 million, up 17%) followed by politics site Joe (3.6 million, up 14%).

And year-on-year, Reach regional Gloucestershire Live (3.3 million, up 91%) this month saw the third biggest growth behind Joe (3.4 million, up 289%) and Forbes (7.3 million, up 105%).

The Sun, which has spent most of the past year as the biggest commercial news website in the UK by audience size, had fallen behind both The Guardian and Mail Online for September’s ranking.

It was initially nudged out of second place in August by The Guardian, but was in September also narrowly overtaken by Mail Online.

In September The Guardian remained the second-biggest news website behind the BBC (whose figures also include its entertainment offering).

Mail Online (18,322,504), The Sun (18,320,269) and The Independent (18,260,316) sat close together in third, fourth and fifth place respectively.

Sky News fell down the ranking to become the eighth biggest news website in the UK, just two months after leaping up to third place. In September it had an audience of 16.3 million, down 20% month-on-month and 9% year-on-year.

The Manchester Evening News (10.4 million, down 1% month-on-month) overtook fellow Reach site Birmingham Live (10.3 million, down 4%) to retake the spot of the biggest regional news website in the UK.

Looking at engagement, Channel 4 saw strong growth in total minutes spent both month-on-month (up 41%) and year-on-year (63%) – although its figures, like the BBC and ITV, include its entertainment offering and not just news. Users spent 656.6 million minutes with Channel 4 online in September.

On the other end of the spectrum, Bristol Live’s minutes were down 29% month-on-month and 53% year-on-year to 5.3 million.

The top three sites for both total minutes spent and page views were again the BBC, Yahoo! and Mail Online. The Sun was fourth for page views (213.5 million) but eleventh by minutes (277.8 million).

August 2024

The Guardian was the biggest commercial news website in the UK in August, overtaking the likes of The Sun and Mail Online in Press Gazette’s monthly ranking.

The Guardian had an audience of 21.8 million people in the UK in August, according to Ipsos iris data analysed by Press Gazette. This was a slight dip since July of 1% but year-on-year growth of 1%.

The Guardian has frequently sat in around fifth place in our monthly ranking, behind the BBC, The Sun, Mail Online and the Mirror. It has also at times been overtaken by Sky News or The Independent.

Nine of the ten biggest news websites in the UK in August saw month-on-month decline after a busy news month in July that included the UK election results and new Labour government, a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift dance class in Southport that led to days of rioting across England, Joe Biden stepping down from the US presidential race, and an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

The only top-ten news website that grew between July and August was Yahoo!, up 4% to an audience of 17 million in August.

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).

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.

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.

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%).

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).

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).

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).

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.

Topics in this article : Top 50