The Sun newspaper has recorded a ten-fold increase year-on year in its mobile audience and nearly doubled its overall readership in a year, new National Readership Survey figures out today show.
It comes after the paper scrapped its online paywall in November last year.
NRS figures for the year to September give the Sun a net, print, digital and mobile readership of 24m per month compared with 13m over the same period the year before, when it was still behind a paywall.
The rise is driven by a 909 per cent increase in UK mobile readership year-on-year from 1.6m to 16.5m and a 91 per cent rise in its desktop digital audience year-on-year from 1m to 2m.
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The Sun’s print readership fell by 8 per cent, the data shows.
Figures are comprised from NRS data based on a reader survey over 12 months along with Comscore UK ratings for September 2016.
The Times saw its digital audience more than double year-on-year to 662,000 while its mobile audience almost tripled to 1.5m. The Times and Sunday Times have relaxed their online paywalls allowing registered readers to see two articles per week for free.
The Evening Standard, Daily Star and Daily Express also recorded an increase in their digital readership year-on-year.
For more than half of the 26 brands (including 13 newsbrands and 13 consumer magazines) measured across all platforms, mobile is now the single biggest provider of audience.
Simon Redican, chief executive The Publishers Audience Measurement Company (PAMCo) which took over from the NRS in January, said: “The latest data shows that published media continues to have almost ubiquitous market saturation, with consumption of publishers’ content via mobile platforms continuing to grow again this quarter.
“In addition, what is striking is that despite popular perceptions, reach amongst young audiences is actually higher than for the population as a whole.”
National Readership Survey monthly audience data for the year to September 2016
| Title | Net Print, PC and Mobile Total | Total Print | Total PC | Total Mobile |
| Daily Mail / dailymail.co.uk | 29263 | 10068 | 7418 | 20437 |
| The Guardian / theguardian.com | 26197 | 4037 | 6972 | 21839 |
| Daily Mirror / mirror.co.uk | 24969 | 5902 | 4374 | 19256 |
| The Sun / thesun.co.uk | 24022 | 10661 | 2077 | 16544 |
| The Daily Telegraph / telegraph.co.uk | 22223 | 3819 | 6740 | 16600 |
| Metro / metro.co.uk | 17639 | 10582 | 1517 | 9374 |
| No Print Publication / independent.co.uk | 16940 | 0 | 4211 | 14569 |
| Daily Express / express.co.uk | 12033 | 2724 | 3104 | 7646 |
| London Evening Standard / standard.co.uk | 11012 | 4986 | 1530 | 7069 |
| Daily Star / dailystar.co.uk | 6362 | 2569 | 1069 | 3383 |
| The Times / thetimes.co.uk | 5763 | 4378 | 662 | 1487 |
| Daily Record / dailyrecord.co.uk | 4561 | 1230 | 588 | 3650 |
| The Scotsman / scotsman.com | 1302 | 336 | 412 | 729 |
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