NDM: Weekly News Article - W/C 12th December (28)

The Drum on The Sun’s digital strategy

https://www.news.co.uk/2016/06/the-drum-on-the-suns-digital-strategy/

Summary

It's a momentous time for The Sun newspaper, the UK's most outspoken supporter of Brexit with its dramatic "BeLEAVE in Britain" headline is banking on Britain to revive its online fortunes. The Drum visited Sun's publisher News UK headquarters (June) and told of how the tabloids uniquely British identity will be made the cornerstone of the brand in years to come both printed and digital mediums if print still exists for much longer that is. Unlike, most of it's UK rivals namely Daily Mail; The Sun doesn't have a need to exploit the English language - chief operating officer for News UK, David Dinsmore says "they have concluded that they should heavily focus on UK before massively going out with our borders. Keith Poole, head of digital operations at The Sun insists the paper will be squarely aimed at a British audience, The Sun are wanting to drive UK traffic and deepen engagement.        

Key Statistics

• The Sun is still the biggest newspaper on the British newsstand, even if print circulation is down to 1.7m from 3.2m a decade ago
• The Sun currently has  2.3m daily unique users
• In 2013, The Sun followed its sister News UK title The Times in erecting a paywall
• The Times began charging for online access in 2010
• The Sun has a digital subscriber base of 172,000 and 400,000 combined print and digital sales
• Overall, The Sun has a digital subscriber base of  220,000, but is spending an awful lot of money to get those subscribers
• The bright and brash graphics-rich content digitally of The Sun is said to apparently be aimed at a female audience aged 18-25

My Opinion

This article isn't that new but I think that The Sun have made the right move in digitizing themselves particularly as this world of NDM just keeps on growing and developing with no signs of stopping. The Sun updated and from what I have read continue to innovate their digital presence. However, I think that The Sun's publisher News UK; need to think about how the brand is put across to the audience digitally because from what I have read about them and their digital processes they seem to be reducing the reach across the British audience that they have. This is because the way in which they are presenting themselves seems only to be appealing to certain people as it says in the article, The Sun is the only UK tabloid on Snapchat, but the bright and brash graphics-rich content seem only to draw the attention of female 18-25-year-olds.