UKOM Data Report: August 2010

NIELSEN GLOBAL DATA PROCESSING PROBLEM: Data for the below report did not meet quality standards set by UKOM, and should be sourced as “Nielsen NetView” not “UKOM APS”. The affected MediaTel UKOM Data Reports, found in Newsline, dates from February to October 2010.

Nielsen and UKOM have rectified this fault and data has been re-issued and updated in the Online database which can be found by running reports here. Please contact your Nielsen client representative if you require further information.

38.4 million people accessed the internet during August, according to the latest data from UKOM. This figure represents 62.5% of the UK population and is actually down 1.1% compared to UKOM’s inaugural data release in January.

Users aged fifty and over continue to represent the biggest group by age with 30.1% of all those online falling into that bracket (11.8 million users in total). Close behind with 10.7 million users were aged 35-49 (27.8%). Meanwhile, 18-24 year olds had the lowest percentage of users with 11.3% (4.3 million users).

Nearly one fifth of the online population accessed the internet from London, totaling 7.3 million. The Borders had the lowest regional representation online with just less than 1% of the online universe from the area. 5% of all users in August belonged to the social group ABC1, while grade B represented the biggest set with over 30%. The lowest social grade, E, made up 9%, while together, grades B and C make up just under 60% of the total universe.

Top Web Brands

The top ten web brands remain unchanged in August, with Google once again coming out on top. Reaching over 53% of UK users, Google continues to be the dominant online brand with numerous entries in the top twenty channels in August, the same month that the Google logo was named the most viewed in the UK.

MSN follows the internet giant as the second most popular brand attracting 27 million users with an active reach of 70%.  Meanwhile, Facebook continues to retain the most users with an average of 585 pages per person over the month. Amazon saw the biggest jump of the top ten brands with visitors increasing by 1.4 million.

Newspapers

Mail Online was the most popular online national newspaper for the second month in a row. A slight increase of 302,000 users was enough to keep the Associated Newspapers site on top throughout the month. Guardian.co.uk saw the second biggest month on month increase, with its unique audience growing by 12%. The website also saw the biggest actual change in the top ten newspaper sites with an extra 506,000 users flocking to the site over August, pushing it into second place.

Despite slipping into third position, Telegraph.co.uk still increased its audience, growing by 8.2%. However, the biggest percentage change came from The Sun, which grew by 14%. The Times and The Sunday Times now has a combined audience of 1.7 million, an actual improvement on the old Times Online website, which had 1.6 million users in June. News International recently announced plans to put the News of The World site behind a paywall in October. The site reported a very small drop in users over August, but retains an audience of more than one million users, according to UKOM.

TV Players

YouTube remains the most popular television catch-up service in the UK with a unique audience of 17.6 million people, up 3.8% month on month. You Tube, which now features content from Sky, Channel 4 and Five as well as the usual user-generated content, saw an active reach of 46%. After announcing that Five is planning to show content via Facebook, Demand Five saw a month on month increase of 13.7%, while the iPlayer saw continued growth – up 8.6% in August.

However, SeeSaw, who recently struck a deal to stream content from NBC Universal, had the biggest percentage change of the top ten TV Sites – up 31.5%. The Arqiva-owned site gained an audience of 302,000 over the month. Meanwhile, the biggest actual change was seen by YouTube and iPlayer, boasting an extra 641,000 and 535,000 users respectively.

Social Media

Facebook continues to dominate social media with growth of 1.2% over August (it now has 25.3 million users in total). However, blogging sites also feature heavily in the top ten now – Blogger, the second most popular social media site, recorded 8 million Brits using the service throughout the month. WordPress saw a rise of 5.6% month on month, Hub Pages showed a 10% rise, which helped it into the top ten, and Six Apart grew by 3.4%.

BBC Communities, meanwhile, lost 53,000 users over the month and came in as the 111th most popular destination overall. Bebo didn’t have a great month either, losing 202,000 users and falling out of the top ten. However, professional networking site LinkedIn had an impressive month and displayed the biggest growth with a 20% increase, which translates to nearly half a million users.

Search

Google has three entries in the top ten. Google Search comes out on top – reaching 81% of the online universe. A total of 31 million users puts Google Search way ahead of its competitors. Google Image Search is the second most popular engine, although there is a significant gap of 18 million users behind its parent site. Yahoo! Search, although lagging behind its rival, is the second most popular brand of search with a unique audience of 7.5 million. After losing a substantial amount of users in July, BBC Search boosted it audience by 19% in August, which has sent it back into the top ten.

UKOM data is available in Mediatel.co.uk’s Online Database.