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The Sun scorches online

Posted in Media, Digital, Branwell Johnson, Latest reporters' blogs March 27th, 2009 by Branwell Johnson

Congrats to the Sun for leapfrogging to the number one spot for web traffic in February.

This is normally the preserve of guardian.co.uk and the publisher must be dismayed with the result. Being trumped by telegraph online, with which has been running neck-and-neck, GN&M might be able to stomach - but The Sun?

The publisher has put out quite defensive statement that reads in part “… as anticipated our global figures have dropped from January’s record-breaking success to 25.3 million, partly because this was a shorter month and partly because the international news agenda wasn’t so strong, no Obama effect for example.

“By contrast the celebrity agenda was very active and this may account for the overall increase in some of our competitors’ figures.”

Hmm, isn’t there always a very active celebrity agenda? Although I guess in this case they meant the Jade Goody deathwatch coverage.

Other reasons do come to mind for the boost to The Sun and Telegraph websites. For the former, it may just be that the bulk of the populace are now fatigued and rather depressed with in-depth financial and economic reporting. They are looking for lighter, or at least less complex, stories with beginnings and ends they can grasp.

Looking at the websites from the other quality newspapers, maybe they have begun to catch up in terms of technology, site design, navigation and ease of use. GN&M invested heavily in its web operations and its sites are superlative but first mover advantage can only last so long.

We’ll see with the ABCe figures for March whether this was just a blip or whether guardian.co.uk will have to resign itself to the fact that it no longer rules the roost in terms of eyeballs. Of course, there is a bigger debate going on about how to generate revenue from all these visitors. Whoever cracks that really deserves the title top dog.