New research from Experian Hitwise has been used by The Guardian to suggests that 54,000 people a month are accessing content behind the paywall of The Times and Sunday Times.

The research was commissioned by Guardian News and Media and published internally on the company’s intranet yesterday.

The only official figures released by News International so far, at the beginning of November, said that just over 50,000 subscribers a month paid to access the websites of The Times and Sunday Times – which have been pay to view since the start of June. News International said that there had been a further 50,000 pay as you go online purchases and that 100,000 print subscribers had activated their bundled online subscriptions.