Daily consumption of national print and digital news brands in the UK soared to over 30 million in the first quarter of the year, its highest ever number, according to the latest data from the Publishers Audience Measurement Company (PAMCo).

News readership across all national brands was up during the period by an extra 6.6 million daily digital readers, a rise of 35% year-on-year. And more than 25 million people now turn to a digital national news brand each day.

The latest numbers compare the periods April to March 2019 with April to March 2020, which in 2020 includes the time when COVID-19 began to spread rapidly. The results show an increase in audience numbers across all metrics, says PAMCo.

The data reveals that the UK news brand sector – which includes all national daily and Sunday news titles, plus all major evening and morning regional titles – now reaches 49 million people a month, 48 million a week, and 40 million a day.

Across both print and digital, national news readership was up overall by 18% to take total readership above 30 million daily readers for the first time.

To put the daily readership of 40 million across national and provincial titles into perspective, it is 15 million more daily unique visitors than Google and 7.5 million more than Facebook.

Tracy De Groose, executive chair of Newsworks, the UK marketing body for national newspapers, said: “As the global pandemic took hold at the beginning of the year, millions more readers turned to sources of news, analysis and information they knew they could trust.

“And, encouragingly for our news brands and our journalism, this was at a more frequent rate than ever before. All the indications suggest that this more regular daily demand for high quality journalism has continued into the second quarter of the year.”

Research carried out last year by Newsworks looked at the impact of news media on the outcome of campaigns, including brand awareness, buying intent and customer loyalty.

Its findings contrast with the widespread view that context is unimportant, and that all impressions are equal.

Newsworks and research company Future Thinking examined 14 multimedia campaigns for major brands such as John Lewis, Huawei and Uber Eats. They found that campaign awareness was measured at 46% on average, but this increased to 54% among news brand readers. And brand knowledge was 18% higher after news brand exposure, while purchase intent was 23% higher.

Sourced from PAMCo