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Overseas visitors outnumber domestic audience for UK media brands: comScore study

Indiantelevision.com Team

(24 January 2008 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: comScore, which measures the digital world, has released the results of a study of the worldwide traffic to the online properties of traditional UK media brands, based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service.

The study revealed that online visitors originating from outside the UK outnumbered the domestic audience for the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and The Daily Mail.

The Daily Mail had the highest proportion of international visitors, with 69 per cent of its 7.6 million visitors originating from outside the UK. The BBC attracted 59 per cent of its audience internationally, while The Telegraph (57 per cent) and The Guardian (56 per cent) also drew more than half their respective audiences from outside the UK.

Only two of the ten sites studied, British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) and ITV Sites, had less than a quarter of their traffic originate internationally.

comScore EVP (European markets) Bob Ivins says, “In recent years, UK media companies have been able to acquire significant international audiences by leveraging their brands online. The Internet is a truly global medium, allowing consumers to easily access content from anywhere in the world. It is critical that publishers and advertisers understand their global franchise – not just their U.K. audiences.”

Several UK TV news media brands experienced online growth during the past year. BBC sites, the largest property in the study, gained five per cent versus year ago to reach nearly 46 million worldwide unique visitors in November 2007, while ITV sites grew 37 per cent to 7.7 million, and Channel4 increased 28 per cent to 5.2 million. There were also significant increases in traffic to a number of online newspaper sites, including the DailyMail.co.uk (up 153 per cent to 7.6 million visitors) and the Telegraph Group Ltd (up 129 per cent to 6.2 million visitors).