Foreign readers make up the bulk of the visitors
By Heidi Dawley Sep 25, 2007
England may no longer be an empire in the classic sense, with colonies about the world, but it's still very much an empire in the new virtual world, truly a global media empire to which the rest of the world still turns.
Indeed, for all the power of The New York Times, for example, it's the British newspapers that draw the biggest share of traffic from nations outside its borders, and by huge margins, for some well over half their readership.
That compares to single-digit shares for major U.S. papers, such as The Times and The Washington Post.
"All British papers have high proportions of readers from abroad, particularly from America," says Martin Clarke, associate editor of the Daily Mail and editorial director of its web site. "The media world is evolving into a mass Anglophone market that is independent of geography."
Britain’s Guardian has 4.7 million overseas readers, about 66 percent its online audience, while the Daily Mail has 4.5 million overseas readers, or 78 percent of its visitors. Even the downmarket Sun, famous for its topless Page Three girls, gets 44 percent of its audience from overseas (See chart, below).
Among the U.S. papers, NYTimes.com gets 8 percent of its monthly unique audience from overseas, or about 1.3 million visitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings numbers for July, while WashingtonPost.com and USAToday.com get about 3 percent from overseas.
The one exception among the U.S. papers is The Wall Street Journal, whose site gets 47 percent of its traffic from outside the U.S. But the Journal is really an international paper, with both European and Far East editions.
Why so much traffic to the sites of UK papers?
No one has any sure answers, but there's some intelligent guesswork going on, and the best reasoning is that British papers offer a far more global perspective, compared to the U.S.-centric editorial content of The Times and The Post, for example. It's essentially the same reason Americans watch BBC news.
"British newspapers are renowned for their independence and the fact that they report more on global news," says Alex Burmaster, European analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings. "It comes down to the perception that U.S. newspapers are far more U.S.-centric in their reporting, that overseas readers will only find out what’s happening in the U.S."
But certainly the search function also plays a role, according to the Mail's Clarke, as do aggregator sites. Neither is a respecter of boundaries when it comes to where they send traffic.
Yet another factor, says Clarke, is that British papers operate in a crowded home market, which forces them to offer compelling content.
"Dare I say it, that in a lot of newspapers in the U.S., where they are monopolies, the content might not be so attractive outside their hometown as ours is," he says. "The fact that you can search the internet so easily means that you can naturally gravitate to the sites with more interesting content. It’s very Darwinian."
For its part, the Guardian believes its popularity stems from its liberal political voice. "We have an international perspective on foreign and domestic affairs that is an interesting voice," says Tom Turcan, general manager, digital for Guardian News & Media. "Our ambition is to become the world’s leading liberal voice." He says the Guardian's overseas readership really began to grow after 9/11 and the start of the Iraq war.
About a third of the site's readers come from the U.S., and the paper will soon launch a new tailored home page for those readers.
The challenge for all the British papers is how to pull revenue from that great flush of overseas readers, says the Mail's Clarke. “In commercial terms, our advertising revenues are driven by the number of UK readers. We haven’t managed to monetize these overseas readers so far.”
Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended Sept. 16, Google was the top parent company, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, AOL Media Network and Microsoft.
NexTag was the No. 1 advertiser for the third straight week with 4.7 million impressions, followed by No. 2 Experian Group Limited at 3.7 million. With 28.9 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MySpace at 4.7 million.
Sessions per person per week rose from 16 to 17, and domains visited per person also rose, from 40 to 41. PC time per person was up nearly 5 percent from the previous week, to 17 hours and 23 minutes.
Top 10 UK Newspaper Sites by Global Unique Audience Ranked by % that is overseas audience
July 2007
Rank
Site
% of Global UA foreign (non-UK)
Global Unique Audience (millions)
UK Unique Audience (millions)
Global Rank
1
Financial Times
80%
2.0
0.4
6
2
Evening Standard
79%
1.7
0.4
7
3
Daily Mail
78%
5.8
1.3
2
4
Independent
68%
1.5
0.5
8
5
The Observer
67%
1.0
0.3
10
6
Guardian
66%
7.1
2.4
1
7
Telegraph
63%
4.6
1.7
3
8
Times
59%
4.3
1.7
4
9
Scotsman
55%
1.5
0.7
9
10
Sun
44%
3.7
2.1
5
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Top 25 parent companies Through Sept. 16
#
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
84,478
62.6
0:35:08
2
Microsoft
80,770
59.9
0:42:47
3
Yahoo!
75,844
56.2
1:08:47
4
Time Warner
67,472
50.0
1:23:16
5
News Corp. Online
40,743
30.2
0:49:30
6
eBay
32,982
24.5
0:54:39
7
InterActiveCorp
29,256
21.7
0:14:44
8
Amazon
23,051
17.1
0:12:52
9
Wikimedia Foundation
22,013
16.3
0:09:13
10
Landmark Communications
20,488
15.2
0:10:57
11
Apple Computer
20,114
14.9
0:23:12
12
Walt Disney Internet Group
19,654
14.6
0:23:44
13
RealNetworks, Inc.
19,491
14.5
0:16:44
14
New York Times Company
19,306
14.3
0:10:07
15
AT&T Inc.
16,190
12.0
0:23:49
16
Viacom Digital
13,298
9.9
0:20:53
17
Bank of America
13,274
9.8
0:21:13
18
CBS Corporation
13,258
9.8
0:19:11
19
CNET Networks
13,225
9.8
0:06:28
20
E.W. Scripps Company
12,432
9.2
0:05:53
21
United Online
10,920
8.1
0:30:28
22
Comcast Corp.
10,701
7.9
0:33:02
23
J.P. Morgan Chase and Company
9,595
7.1
0:19:37
24
Gannett
9,588
7.1
0:12:40
25
Verizon Communications
9,565
7.1
0:17:34
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Top 25 brands Through Sept. 16
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
78,786
58.4
0:25:34
2
Yahoo!
75,465
55.9
1:08:44
3
MSN/Windows Live
60,745
45.0
0:42:42
4
AOL Media Network
54,946
40.7
1:33:21
5
Microsoft
52,958
39.3
0:16:12
6
Fox Interactive Media
35,504
26.3
0:52:40
7
eBay
28,530
21.2
0:56:00
8
YouTube
28,268
21.0
0:28:26
9
Wikipedia
21,954
16.3
0:09:10
10
Apple
20,114
14.9
0:23:12
11
Real Network
19,491
14.5
0:16:44
12
Amazon
19,020
14.1
0:11:40
13
Weather Channel
17,808
13.2
0:11:34
14
Ask Search Network
16,413
12.2
0:15:59
15
CNN Digital Network
14,691
10.9
0:18:01
16
Blogger
13,383
9.9
0:07:26
17
About.com
13,273
9.8
0:03:36
18
Bank of America
12,992
9.6
0:20:43
19
ESPN
10,142
7.5
0:26:09
20
Chase
9,290
6.9
0:19:41
21
Comcast
9,170
6.8
0:37:27
22
AT&T
8,775
6.5
0:16:33
23
Gorilla Nation Media
8,387
6.2
0:06:56
24
Craigslist
8,369
6.2
0:39:42
25
PayPal
8,046
6.0
0:11:59
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
Top 25 advertisers (excludes house ads)
Through Sept. 16
#
Company
Impressions (000)
1
NexTag, Inc.
4,701,360
2
Experian Group Limited
3,706,829
3
Countrywide Financial Corporation
3,034,423
4
Reunion.com L.L.C.
2,564,409
5
Low Rate Source
2,196,878
6
Netflix, Inc.
2,073,436
7
HSBC Holdings plc
1,412,526
8
InterActiveCorp
1,384,541
9
AT&T Corp.
1,325,985
10
degreeUSA
1,282,785
11
Midway Home Entertainment
981,685
12
Apollo Group, Inc.
953,962
13
Privacy Matters
898,237
14
Course Advisor, Inc.
678,471
15
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
675,065
16
Verizon Communications, Inc.
594,265
17
Ford Motor Company
574,172
18
Wachovia Corporation
573,962
19
Echostar Communications Corporation
545,628
20
StubHub.com
527,097
21
SinglesNet
525,105
22
Vonage Holdings Corp
423,881
23
United Online, Inc.
417,730
24
Time Warner Inc.
401,668
25
Capital One Financial Corporation
392,682
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen//NetRatings 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. Nielsen//NetRatings 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 Sept. 16
Company
Impressions (000)
1
Yahoo!
28,907,353
2
MySpace
4,675,491
3
MSN
2,993,035
4
eBay
1,181,380
5
AOL.com
1,043,935
6
MSNBC
641,075
7
Comcast.net
613,457
8
NetZero
565,585
9
FOXNEWS.COM
540,128
10
Juno
533,977
11
The Weather Channel
468,597
12
ESPN.com
456,676
13
New York Times
416,847
14
IMDb
397,376
15
YouTube
381,441
16
iWon
309,456
17
CBS SportsLine
289,542
18
The Weather Underground
211,373
19
EarthLink
205,980
20
NFL.com
193,789
21
Classmates
187,552
22
Amazon
185,461
23
Photobucket
180,848
24
Realtor.com
177,274
25
NeoPets
165,299
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen//NetRatings 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. Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.
