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Adblockers City A.M.

City A.M. extends ban on ad blockers to all desktop users

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By John Glenday, Reporter

December 15, 2015 | 2 min read

Fresh from trialling a ban on the use of ad block blocking technology on its website City A.M. is pressing ahead with a full roll-out of the technology to all desktop users – although mobile users will not be affected.

City A.M., ad blockers

City A.M. became the first UK newspaper to ban ad blockers on its website back in October with Firefox users prevented from accessing content if they have active ad blocking software installed.

Martin Ashplant, digital and social media director at City A.M., said: “The results of this trial are very encouraging and suggest that many of our users value our content enough to turn their ad blockers off. We have also been heartened to see that where users do turn off ad blockers they go on to view many more pages than the site average.”

Jens Torpe, CEO and co-founder of City A.M., added: “Our business is funded by advertising revenues and we rely on online advertising to finance the quality journalism that City A.M. is known for. This trial was very important to the business so we are pleased to be in a position to roll out the technology so soon after the initial trial period.”

During this trial the paper noted a decline in the number of Firefox page impressions with an ad blocker installed, dropping from 22 to 15 per cent. The title also reported that ad blockers were switched off in 21 per cent of instances in which the user was asked to do so.

Adblockers City A.M.

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