In an exceptional year for the global news publisher, The Independent became Britain’s biggest digital news brand in November 2024, according to new figures released by Ipsos Iris.
The Independent’s monthly UK audience grew to 19.6m in November. Its rise to become the number one in the UK follows October’s announcement that it is the biggest UK-born news publisher in the US and the fifth largest digital newspaper out of all titles in the US, 16m readers ahead of the LA Times and closing on the Washington Post.
Highlights
Audience and section growth
Web traffic to the independent.co.uk rose by 439k MoM (month-on-month), with the sections showing the most notable growth including —
IndyBest: the audience for The Independent’s shopping and recommendation platform surged, with 965k new readers (+44.2%) in November.
News: attracted an additional 331k monthly readers.
Lifestyle: further improved upon the strong numbers recorded in October, with 233k extra readers.
Engagement
This record reach caps a year that has also seen major gains in engagement. Strong increases were seen throughout 2024 in direct homepage traffic and pages per user, with a 20% rise in video views following the launch of more original Independent TV programming, and up to 72m minutes of video per month viewed on site. Over 1b videos were viewed on The Independent website in 2024.
Engaged time with priority non-news verticals is also rising fast. In ecommerce, 1m consumers made a purchase from IndyBest pages in 2024, while in newsletters, almost 2m have signed up to The Independent’s regular emails.
Engaged time in sport is up 54% year-on-year, with lifestyle up 25%. The Independent’s new EVs (electric vehicles) vertical recorded more than 1.3m minutes of engaged time in its first three months alone.
In the US, users are consuming more than double the number of articles they did a year ago.
Group success
There is continued good news for The Independent’s parent company, Independent Media. For a second month, four of its brands dominated the news pure play chart. The Independent hit the top position, followed by HuffPost at number two, BuzzFeed in third position and Indy100 fourth. In combination, The Independent, Buzzfeed and HuffPost reached a UK audience of 20.5m in November.
Geordie Greig, Editor-in-Chief of The Independent remarks: “What an historic moment for The Independent – for us to be the top commercial news brand in the UK, surpassing the Mail, Guardian, Telegraph and the Times and only the billion-pound-subsidised BBC above us. I am so delighted that our team at The Independent has created this epic result and proud that we continue to invest more and more in quality journalism.”
Christian Broughton, The Independent’s CEO adds: “November has been another fantastic month for The Independent in an extraordinary year. The desire for trusted, truly independent journalism has never been greater, and we have the right business strategy to build The Independent further, with exciting plans for the US, ecommerce, Independent TV, key lifestyle verticals and fresh talent.”
Source: © Ipsos, Ipsos iris Online Audience Measurement Service, November 2024, Brand Group – Digital Quality News Brands* & *Pureplays, all adults age 15+, UK *Note: Custom defined list by Independent. The Independent Brand Group audience includes Indy 100 data
