The comScore toady released the finding of its study examining domestic and worldwide visitation to leading U. K. newspaper sites, based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service. The comScore study found that total 15.9 million people in the U. K. visited a newspaper Web site in March, representing a 43-percent reach of the country's online population.

According to the comScore study, the Sun Online was the most popular online newspaper in the U. K. in March, growing 8 percent versus year ago to 4.6 million visitors. Guardian. co. uk ranked second with 4.3 million visitors, followed by Telegraph. co. uk (3.9 million visitors), the Mail Online (3.5 million visitors) and the Times Online (3 million visitors). The majority of the top ten newspaper sites achieved double-digit growth versus year ago, including Metro. co. uk, which grew 75 percent to rank as the fastest-growing.

The comScore study found that while online U. K. newspapers draw substantial domestic audiences, most attract even larger international audiences. Specifically, the Mail Online derived 73 percent of its worldwide audience from outside of the U. K., followed by FT. com (67 percent), and Metro. co. uk (61 percent). Even Thisislondon. co. uk, the Web site of London-focused newspaper the Evening Standard, derived 48 percent of its total traffic from outside of the country.

According to Mike Read, SVP and Managing Director, comScore Europe, "Traditional U. K. newspaper brands have proven to be very popular online, both here in the U. K. and around the world. Whether or not these titles choose to switch to subscription-based models, at the possible expense of audience attrition, remains to be seen. However, we can be certain that the online medium has enabled U. K. newspapers to attract substantial incremental readership from other countries - audiences that were not nearly as accessible in the days of print-only publications."

Other notable findings of the comScore study include - Of the 15.9 million U. K. Internet users who visited a newspaper site in March, 72 percent were from the ABC1 social grade and 63 percent were under the age of 45. - 35 percent of the total 2.1 million visitors to FT. com came from the U. S. in March, compared with the 33 percent who accessed the site from within the U. K. - Of the 48 million mobile phone subscribers in the U. K. in February, 11.9 million accessed news and information via browser or download.