27 December 2021

REACH OVERTAKES BBC IN RANKING OF TOP 20 WEB PUBLISHERS IN THE UK

Reach overtook the BBC to become the publisher with the biggest audience in the UK, according to data from the UKOM endorsed UK standard for online audience measurement.

Reach’s total audience across national brands including the Mirror, Express, Star and Daily Record as well as dozens of regional sites grew by 0.2% month-on-month to hit 38.1m people (76% reach) in November.

This put it ahead of the BBC (38m people) whose sites saw a 2.7% drop in audience compared to last month. Last month BBC was the leading publisher in the UK. 

Both publishers were eclipsed by four US tech giants which were the only website publishers to reach more than 40m people in the UK in November. Alphabet, which includes Google’s home page for search and YouTube, was the leading online organisation reaching 49.5m people aged over 15 in the UK – 99% of people in the country who used the internet.

Sites by Meta - previously known as Facebook- which include Facebook and Instagram were the second most popular, reaching 48.8m people (98% of internet users over 15). Amazon reached 45.9m (reach of 92%) and Microsoft reached 40.6m people (reach of 81%). 

Last month six organisations reached more than 75% of web users. In November NHS websites expanded this list of six sites to seven as more than 37m people (75% of internet users aged over 15) accessed an NHS site in November, likely spurred on by increasing interest in information about Covid-19 since the emergence of the Omicron variant.