While The Telegraph has been enjoying all the media attention this last week, at least here in the UK, thanks to exposing the scandal of British MP expense claims and breaking new details first online every day, it is not the most popular online UK newspaper according to newly published research. The Telegraph was third in the list with 3.9 million visitors during the month of March, admittedly long before the current media-magnet scandal hit the front page.
Maybe that honour, then, falls to The Guardian. After all the online version of this long running newspaper did pick up no less than three Webby awards this month, including the Best Online Newspaper award for the fourth time in five years. But no, The Guardian could only manage second place in the most viewed polls with some 4.3 million visitors.
So that just leaves the thunderer, that best known of British newspapers, The Times to mop up the crowning glory then? Nope, with just 3 million visitors it could only manage fifth position behind the Daily Mail in fourth on 3.5 million.
According to comScore, the "Total Online Visitors to a Selection of Leading U.K. Newspaper Titles" poll was topped not by one of the former broadsheets, the serious side of the newspaper industry, but rather by a red top tabloid. Yep, The Sun topped the list with a rather impressive 4.6 million visitors during that single month. A figure that represents an 8 percent year on year growth as well as being a healthy lump of the total 15.9 million people in the UK who visited one of the newspaper sites. That's a reach of 43 percent of the British online population.
Things look a little different when you factor in the visits of people outside the UK to the same newspapers though, with the Daily Mail rising to the top with 12.8 million unique visitors from across the planet compared to The Sun on 11.5 million in second place. The Telegraph and Guardian also swap places in the global league.