Newsquest Scotland – publisher of The Herald, Evening Times and The National – has recorded strong growth in its digital performance.
It follows a restructuring of the entire newsroom, including a number of key editorial appointments to focus on growth.
According to the unaudited internal metrics from August, the group saw a 31 per cent year-on-year rise in editorial article views and a 15% hike in page views. Newsquest’s flagship site heraldscotland.com – growing behind a paywall – also broke through the two million unique users mark for the month.
The eveningtimes.co.uk smashed through five-million article views for the second month in a row. The Herald was up 116% and Evening Times 135% respectively.
Sister site thenational.scot recorded its second highest ever figures last month, with the fastest growth of any site in the group.
According to the latest data, it was up 196% against last year. Newsquest Scotland now also has more than one million followers – 1,004,412 – across its social media channels.
Editor-in-chief Donald Martin said: “These are a fantastic set of figures across the board in the most highly competitive digital landscape in the UK and proof that our strategy to build sustained growth through quality journalism is paying off.
“Our combination of the best columnists, expanded opinion and analysis pages, and a reinvigorated approach to sport is delivering new audience for The Herald and Evening Times, while The National continues to serve the debate over independence for its growing number of readers.
“It’s been a challenging period for the editorial teams as we’ve sought to integrate our journalism into a platform agnostic system where the story is what matters most, and I’m proud of how they have all pulled together to make it a success. As we evolve, we’ve also been investing in new talent and bringing new skills into the business, all of which is paying dividends as our audience and subscription base grows.”
The results come just a few months after the Herald on Sunday – launched almost exactly a year ago – picked up newspaper of the year at the UK Regional Press Awards.
It added to a clutch of reporting awards for the editorial team this year, including accolades for health reporter Helen McArdle, data journalist Martin Williams, columnist Neil Mackay, arts journalist Barry Didcock and journalist Karin Goodwin.
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