The Guardian writes: David Mitchell had some brutal alternatives on offer last week. You either build a paywall around your newspaper net site – or you don’t, he told Observer readers. You either make money online – or you lose it. You either think Rupert Murdoch may have had a useful idea for his Times – or you excoriate him as per usual. But hang on a moment, because all this black and white stuff leaves out one discommoding part of the argument. Yes, it’s the Daily Mail.
Take the Mail in print. Around 1.9 million punters buying a copy every day, which means 4,881,000 readers scanning their favourite sheet each morning. And online, the growth from nothing much four years ago to 40,500,000 unique browsers a month is verging on the phenomenal: up 72% year on year. Through 2009, the Telegraph and the Guardian were two close competitors – sometimes ahead, often very near to, the Mail. Not now. Both still have good growth of their own, but Associated’s electronic baby – 16 million unique browsers in the UK, 26.3 million in the rest of the world – begins to hint at a different league.
Ah! Perhaps that’s because it is in a different league, say the snipers. Look at those yards of celebrity gossip and pictures on the site; this isn’t the Mail we know (and don’t much love). This is a different beast that somehow doesn’t count because it fights unfair.
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