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In Britain, web
takes on a certain grit


Notable shift as more blue-collar readers visit sites

Aug 5, 2008

One may not immediately intuit the differences between a City Adventurer versus an Industrial Grit, or even care too, but those differences speak loads about how the internet is changing and how we consume news.

City Adventurer is one of 61 designations in Experian's Mosaic of British lifestyle types, identifying young, single adults who make good salaries and live in major cities like London or Edinburgh.

Industrial Grits are blue-collar sorts who live in smaller industrial towns, work in factories, and are described as family-oriented and self sufficient. In the U.S. the groups have similar-sounding designations.

What happened in both countries is a shift in visitors to newspaper web sites, with more traffic coming from Industrial Grits. Whereas visits were once dominated by City Adventurers, Industrial Grits have been gaining and now appear to be on a par.

Newspaper web site readership now far more closely resembles the makeup of newspapers' print readership, according to new data from Hitwise, the internet trackers, for its News & Media category.

”Broadly speaking we have been seeing that shift as a trend,” says Robin Goad, research director at Hitwise UK.

That's led to faster web growth for papers with strong working-class readership, and a slowing for sites of the so-called quality papers.

”If you look at the ranks of the top News & Media sites in Britain, such as the Guardian, their readers are internet savvy,” says Goad.

”Over time newspapers with less-internet-savvy readerships, such as the Sun and the Mail, are increasing rapidly. They are challenging the Guardian and the Telegraph, as the kind of the people that are Sun and Mail readers are now as likely to be online.”

While Hitwise doesn't release proportions for the internet overall, figures show that in June Industrial Grits represented a higher proportion of visits to the News & Media category than did the City Adventurers, who had dominated in the months before.

Hitwise found that the quality newspapers in which the City Adventurers were more overrepresented in the four weeks ending July 19, 2007 were The Guardian and the Times Online. They were also overrepresented at the Daily Mail.

Industrial Grits were most overrepresented at the Sun, the Daily Mail and then the Times Online.

Numbers from the ABCe, the electronic figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, show that the Mail could be benefiting from the rise in interest from Industrial Grit. The Mail briefly became the UK's most visited online newspaper site in May before falling back to third, behind the Guardian and the Telegraph, in June, according to the ABCe figures.

***

Top 25 parent companies
Through July 27

#

Parent

Unique Audience (000)

 Reach %

Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)

1

Google

94,215

67.2

0:37:38

2

Microsoft

83,310

59.4

0:44:44

3

Yahoo!

82,584

58.9

1:02:47

4

Time Warner* (Division)

61,567

43.9

1:16:01

5

News Corp. Online

46,092

32.9

0:52:01

6

eBay

34,041

24.3

0:49:51

7

InterActiveCorp

29,971

21.4

0:11:11

8

Apple Computer

23,906

17.0

0:32:45

9

Amazon

23,412

16.7

0:15:14

10

Landmark Communications

22,928

16.3

0:15:28

11

Wikimedia Foundation

22,456

16.0

0:10:05

12

Walt Disney Internet Group

21,913

15.6

0:26:24

13

CBS Corporation

21,796

15.5

0:11:32

14

New York Times Company

21,700

15.5

0:08:31

15

Turner Network (Division)

20,302

14.5

0:20:47

16

AT&T Inc.

18,231

13.0

0:22:54

17

Facebook

17,582

12.5

0:43:21

18

CraigsList

14,824

10.6

0:35:18

19

RealNetworks, Inc.

13,571

9.7

0:20:21

20

Comcast Corp.

13,461

9.6

0:32:30

21

Bank of America

13,325

9.5

0:20:46

22

Verizon Communications

13,110

9.3

0:16:27

23

E.W. Scripps Company

12,916

9.2

0:05:05

24

United Online

12,476

8.9

0:25:59

25

Viacom Digital

12,469

8.9

0:24:22

Source: Nielsen Online

 

Top 25 brands
Through July 27

 

Parent

Unique Audience (000)

Reach %

Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)

1

Google

85,507

61.0

0:26:07

2

Yahoo!

81,263

57.9

1:03:16

3

MSN/Windows Live

63,949

45.6

0:46:38

4

AOL Media Network

54,320

38.7

1:23:11

5

Microsoft

51,800

36.9

0:14:20

6

Fox Interactive Media

39,773

28.4

0:56:00

7

YouTube

36,703

26.2

0:29:38

8

eBay

28,684

20.5

0:52:23

9

Apple

23,906

17.0

0:32:45

10

Wikipedia

22,215

15.8

0:10:06

11

Weather Channel

19,306

13.8

0:17:04

12

Amazon

18,761

13.4

0:14:22

13

Blogger

17,839

12.7

0:06:44

14

Facebook

17,582

12.5

0:43:21

15

Ask Search Network

17,028

12.1

0:10:00

16

CNN Digital Network

15,538

11.1

0:18:32

17

Craigslist

14,819

10.6

0:35:18

18

AT&T

13,833

9.9

0:26:33

19

About.com

13,578

9.7

0:03:23

20

Real Network

13,567

9.7

0:20:21

21

Bank of America

12,918

9.2

0:20:50

22

Glam Media

11,749

8.4

0:11:36

23

Comcast

9,789

7.0

0:42:28

24

Target

9,213

6.6

0:05:23

25

Wal-Mart Stores

9,095

6.5

0:07:21

Source: Nielsen Online

 

Top 25 advertisers 
(excludes house ads)
Through July 27

#

Company

Impressions (000)

1

Experian Group Limited

5,326,534

2

Netflix, Inc.

2,711,075

3

Deutsche Telekom AG

1,580,129

4

Scottrade, Inc.

1,335,648

5

United Online, Inc.

1,045,881

6

Verizon Communications, Inc.

1,045,793

7

Bank of America Corporation

748,692

8

AT&T Corp.

691,926

9

ALLTEL Corporation

669,842

10

InterActiveCorp

519,276

11

Dell Computer Corporation

507,120

12

eBay, Inc.

475,890

13

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company

425,838

14

WixAWin.com

416,133

15

Mighty Net, Inc

397,529

16

Monster Worldwide, Inc.

375,747

17

eHarmony.com

368,714

18

FreeScore.com

354,680

19

E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.

354,663

20

FRS Company

346,743

21

General Motors Corporation

344,961

22

Wachovia Corporation

340,769

23

Apollo Group, Inc.

307,455

24

Vonage Holdings Corp

300,504

25

Privacy Matters

278,081

Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance

Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.

 

Top 25 advertising sites
(excludes house ads)
Through July 27

 

Company

Impressions (000)

1

Yahoo!

17,536,902

2

MySpace

3,222,868

3

MSN

2,568,392

4

Comcast.net

1,413,768

5

MSNBC

1,314,955

6

AOL.com

1,199,765

7

Facebook

688,732

8

eBay

635,963

9

The Weather Channel

578,018

10

IMDb

526,578

11

FOXNEWS.COM

513,352

12

Project Playlist

400,194

13

YouTube

390,106

14

Juno

304,479

15

New York Times

301,907

16

Photobucket

290,581

17

Perezhilton.com

271,904

18

NeoPets

263,941

19

CNN

257,757

20

ESPN.com

244,019

21

AT&T Worldnet

243,782

22

NetZero

223,906

23

TheStreet.com

201,967

24

CNBC

201,890

25

Amazon

190,021

Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance

Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.

 

Average use
Through July 27

 

Current Week

Last Week

% Change

Sessions/Visits per Person

16

16

0

Domains Visited per Person

40

40

0

PC Time per Person

17:56:12

17:46:49

0.88

Active Digital Media Universe

140,297,309

140,159,634

0.10

Current Digital Media Universe Estimate

223,636,470

223,690,378

-0.02

Source: Nielsen Online

 





Heidi Dawley is a staff writer for Media Life.




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