British news websites take US by storm

The British are coming, not by land or by sea, but on the internet.

British media have been making inroads in the US market by invading online space, seizing readers who might otherwise visit websites of domestic outlets like Fox News or The New York Times.

And, even though US news organisations are widely respected around the world, the Brits are peeling away American readers.
According to data from research firm comScore, the tabloid Daily Mail's Mail Online overtook The New York Times last year as the world's biggest newspaper website and held the top spot in June with 44.7 million visitors.

Separate data from web analytics site Alexa.com showed that The Guardian and BBC websites among the top 15 news sites, holding their own among CNN, Yahoo! News and others. "In the English-speaking world, the divider of the Atlantic Ocean is ebbing away because of the internet," said Ken Doctor, a media analyst with the research firm Outsell.

The transatlantic gap had made it difficult for print editions to make it to US shores.

But British media groups are eager to expand on digital platforms just as US media such as TheWall Street Journal and New York Times are growing their international audiences.

In June, the Financial Times launched a multimillion dollar marketing drive in the US, saying it was "underscoring its position as the authoritative source on US and global business, economic and political news."

"This campaign reflects the FT's unwavering commitment to delivering a sharp perspective of global business news and analysis with intelligence, insight and wit," said FT marketing director Caroline Halliwell. "It also represents a substantial investment in the US, one of our fastest growing markets," she added.

The FT did not provide a breakdown of its subscribers by region but one survey showed the newspaper and FT.com reach 761,000 US readers. The company said it has 300,000 digital paid subscribers worldwide.

The London-based paper said mobile users account for 25 per cent of traffic to FT.com and 15 per cent of new subscriptions.

"If you talk to the major British quality publishers, about a third of their traffic has been over the years in the US, which is a surprise," Doctor said.

The analyst said gains came in the past decade, with some theorising that the United States' previous president and his policies had been so unpopular and so little questioned by domestic media that readers looked abroad.

"George W Bush was so unpopular and the New York Times aided the development of the Iraq war, and people wanted media they thought they could trust," Doctor said.

But he said these gains have been extended even after Barack Obama took over the White House. One factor is how internet news searches work.

"Google has democratised the sourcing of news, so you are as likely to find a story from the BBC as from Chicago Tribune," Doctor said. "There is an audience of people who want another point of view, there is an expat audience, and you put all those together and it's significant."