‘Catalan News’ doubles average audience after October events in Catalonia

‘Catalan News’ doubled its average audience after the political events occurred in Catalonia last October, according to a report by Sopra Steria. Specifically, October 1 was a tipping point for the news website's audience. Indeed, the users visiting the website were 323% higher than the average Sunday in September.

The referendum day on October 1, including the Spanish police violence taking place throughout the country, propelled the people visiting the website to its all-time high. ‘Catalan News’ portal welcomed more unique visitors than ever on that day, with also a record-high sessions to webpages within the site than any other day. There was an increase by 371% on sessions compared to an average Sunday in the previous month, reaching 68,000.

International audience

‘Catalan News’ also offered some live footage on the ground, including live images of some Spanish police violence, which was followed by thousands of people, staying on average 5 minutes. Around 35% of the viewers were coming from the UK, with 14% from Spain. In third place that day was Belgium (4.7%), followed by Finland (4.2%) and the Netherlands (3.7%). The rest of the viewers were coming from dozens of countries around the globe. 

 On October 10, the day when President Puigdemont announced the suspension of the declaration of independence in favor of dialogue, and on October 27, the day in which the Catalan Parliament passed the declaration of independence, the number of unique users visiting ‘Catalan News’ also peaked, although not as much as on October 1 in any of the days.

What is 'Catalan News'?

‘Catalan News’ is a digital service focused on news about Catalonia and covering politics, society and science, business, culture and life and style stories. It is part of the Catalan News Agency (Agència Catalana de Notícies, in Catalan), which launched its first website in English in 2010. In 2017, it gave a further push to the project introducing a new site and a daily TV show in English.