Thanks Ryan! Record online figures for The Sunday Herald, The Drum and Twitter as a result of super injunction coverage...or lack of
The Herald Scotland website, has amassed record figures online as a result of the Sunday Herald placing Ryan Gigg’s picture on its cover, and despite not placing any coverage of the story.
The website amassed 1,071,756 visitors on Sunday, as a result of coverage by The Sunday Herald, which included placing a picture of the Premier League footballer on it’s front cover with a black line across his eyes and the word ‘censored’ written across.
The cover was the first time that a UK newspaper chose to break the super injunction placed over the media in mentioning the player’s name, and amassed worldwide coverage as a result, driving curious visitors to the website to view the story.
The newspaper did not publish the story online however, believing that having printed the story in the newspaper, distributed in Scotland alone, it would avoid legal action over breaking the injunction that was granted by an English court.
The next day however, the website garnered even more views with 1,939,147 views, as the story picked up pace, resulting in Giggs being named by an MP while evoking Parliamentary privilege in doing so.
Richard Walker, editor of the Sunday Herald, said: "These statistics underline the irony of us revealing the identity of Ryan Giggs in print only, when this was essentially a story about media coverage online.
"We couldn't name him on heraldscotland for legal reasons, but there was already huge awareness of the story online, and we argued that this made the super-injunction untenable. The volume of traffic to our website confirms the urgent need for a debate on the balance between privacy and public interest in the new media age."
According to online ranking engine Alexa, this saw the Herald Scotland website grow its readership by 220%.
It is thought that sales of the newspaper also grew, with some even being sold on Ebay for £5 to bidders from outside of Scotland.
The Drum’s website also recorded record visits over Sunday and Monday as a result of its coverage of the story, including being the first site to name the newspaper.
Monday alone saw over 78,000 visitors to The Drum website, with readers clamouring for more information about what was happening around the super injunction, growing The Drum’s reach over the weekend by 39%.
Twitter also reported its largest UK audience on Saturday as a result of news reports that Giggs planned to sue the social networking sites users who had defied the injunction and named him.
According to Experian, the story account for one in every 184 internet visits (0.54% of all UK internet traffic), which is comparable to traffic created by the Royal Wedding.