Some very interesting numbers from Robin Goad at Hitwise, showing just how dominant (or not, he concludes) the BBC News website is in the UK news market.
What I find most interesting is the mix of news providers in this ranking. You’ve got broadcasters, newspapers, portals and aggregators (both social and automated), with no one grouping particularly dominant over any other. The Daily Mail has gone from nowhere to being the national #2; meanwhile, the Independent’s radical redesign has yet to really pay off. And look at the Guardian: below the Telegraph, below Sky News even.
‘The market share of BBC News in the category has increased slightly over the last 3 years,’ Robin observes; ‘but at the same time overall visits to the News and Media category have increased at a much faster rate, and most of this increased traffic has gone to non-BBC sites.’ This, he suggests, ‘points to a healthy and competitive online market in the UK, not one dominated by one player.’
Personally, I’m looking at a market being led by one provider whose share (based on the table above, anyway) adds up to significantly more than its 14 nearest competitors put together. How dominant do you want?
Responses
Interestingly, this seems to bear very little relation to the ABCe figures, which as I recall has Telegraph first with a narrow lead over the Guardian. Generally they seem quite odd figures (who knew that MSN News was so popular, for example), but I guess that just illustrates what a minefield web stats are.
yep. no relation to ABCe. that’s very controversial at the moment because the Telegraph went up by a huge amount in March, leaping the Grauniad – and everyone else is questioning how they did it – the Tele says it’s to do with fabulous new content.
in terms of dominance – very relevant with the bbc site review today – that’s a reflection of the bbc’s news resources and reach surely? what would perhaps be worth a complaint is them developing more magazine/feature content and columnists.
The ABCe figures are Unique Visitors, the Hitwise figures are UK Internet Visits – so my first conclusion would be that the two sets of data simply cannot be compared meaningfully. You’re spot on not trying to so it.
I’d only make a tentative note that the Guardian does not seem very “sticky” overall compared to the other sites.
On the market share, I’d agree that there is one leader who is miles ahead – but I note that compared to any other market a 17%, 1.5%, 1.5%, 1.4%, 1.4% top 5 market shares implies a hugely open market compared to clasical figures. I don’t think 17% can be called “dominant” in this context.
I’d also be concerned about the Mail’s position: quoting the Mail uncritically seems to be responsible for a lot of factual inaccuracies on blogs!
I’ve been intrigued by the Daily Mail’s success on Digg. It seems the type of stories that appeal to the paper’s middle-England core also appeal to Digg’s readership.
Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/6lwj7f – I make that 16 hot stories in the last week.
I doubt they planned it that way, but it must be giving their numbers a boost (though you might question the ‘quality’ of the traffic).