Start counting newspaper readerships inside the UK, putting print and digital numbers together, and some interesting things emerge. One is the rapid way in which audience numbers spurt and oscillate online.
The Sun has put on 11 million digital readers in the 16 months since it dropped its paywall (and a new editor, Tony Gallagher, ordered a site makeover). Total readership today: 26.2 million, less than three million behind the Mail, which has just nipped over the 29 million mark. What they’re both offering, in sum, seems to resonate.
Another interesting development is the ghost of the old Independent’s print edition flourishing online: 16.85 million. Look, no ink!
But not all of the changes that matter flow in from cyberspace. Look at the Telegraph (which has a quasi-paywall). Its print readership of 3.84 million trails the Guardian’s 4.1 million. But then there’s the Times, with almost seemingly paltry – though remunerative – online figures, because its paywall is robust – but with 4.2 million print readers taking the tablets.
It’s a tough and often confusing fight at the top – and may remain so, partly because the National Readership Survey (NRS) is mounting yet another makeover in which many things will change again. Is there anything it won’t add, adjust or fix though? Just the figures that matter, perhaps most: subscription money, advertising takes – the basic statistics of success or bitten nails that might help give all such NRS tables the brutal reality of life.