Johnston Press : delivers record digital growth across its newsbrands

25th August 2016 - Johnston Press, one of the UK's largest newspaper publishers, has delivered outstanding digital growth for its brands online, according to results from ABC's latest digital audit released today. The publisher's network has reached a record 23.6m average monthly unique browsers for the six-month period spanning January to June 2016, representing an impressive increase of 21% compared to the same period in 2015.

The figures highlight that 16 of the 17 individually-audited websites displayed an increase in monthly unique browsers in 2016, compared to the first half of 2015, with The Belfast News Letter and Peterborough Telegraph standing out with the highest number of daily average unique browsers for the first six months of the year, with the Peterborough Telegraph displaying an impressive 69.1% year on year growth. Both these brands also featured among a number of sites across the group to receive responsive redesigns online.

The growth comes following the launch of We Are Digital this year, a significant new initiative designed to accelerate the growth of Johnston Press' brands online, through better engagement of online audiences for key newsbrands, and with a strong focus on digital storytelling, primarily with mobile content.

The inews.co.uk website, which launched in April to complement the layout and culture of the i newspaper in print, also saw record traffic in the last week of June, breaking through the 1m page views per week barrier for the first time during this six month period, reaching 1.65m page views*.

Jeff Moriarty, Chief Digital and Product Officer at Johnston Press, said: 'We're very proud to have delivered such outstanding growth for our newsbrands online, all of which is the result of a tremendous effort from a great team. The launch of We Are Digital has already played a significant role in contributing to the increases we've seen, and will continue to be a hugely important editorial project moving forward, following our continued investment in digital products across the group. We very much look forward to continuing to bolster out brands' development online.'