Guardian stretches online lead over broadsheet rivals

by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 23-Oct-08, 12:55

LONDON - Guardian.co.uk stretched its lead over Telegraph.co.uk and Times Online, reaching a record 24.2m unique users in September -- an upbeat result for the quality market as red top newspaper websites suffered.

The Guardian increased its unique user total by about 1m from August, or 4.7%, and also improved its UK user total by 11% to 9.8m, according to the latest ABCe figures.

Telegraph.co.uk held on to second place with a 4% monthly rise to 22.9m users. The site also managed to boost its UK users figure up by 14% to 7.2m.

Times Online reached new heights of 20.3m unique users, up 3.2% month on month, which strengthened its lead over the Mail Online. The Times UK user total also hit a record 6.8m, up by 10% from August.

MailOnline, which includes the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday sites, attracted 17.9m total unique users, up 2.55% month on month. Its UK user total increased, rising by 8.6% to 5.8m.

The Sun, which includes the daily newspaper site as well as NewsoftheWorld.co.uk and Page3.com, posted a decline in total unique users, which fell by 1.3% to 15.8m.

However its UK user total rose by about 13% to 6.2m

Independent.co.uk reported the largest monthly rise, climbing 20.6% to 8m unique users. It does not report to ABCe how many UK users it has.

Mirror Group, spanning Mirror.co.uk, SundayMirror.co.uk and People.co.uk, suffered a monthly decrease in overall users, falling 6% to 5.3m.

Its UK user total also fell month-on-month, down 2.8% to 3.07m, which equates to roughly 58% of its total audience.