The Nationals division publishes five national newspaper titles which are among the UK's leading media brands and reach 17% of the UK population. In the UK we publish the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and The People while in Scotland we publish the two best read national titles, the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail. All our newspapers are complemented by a fast growing portfolio of digital brands plus other commercial activities which include an event marketing division and a portfolio of titles in Scotland.
Mark Hollinshead is the Managing Director of the Nationals Division and the five Nationals' Editors report to him.
Over 2008, our five National titles have had a higher proportion of full-rate sales within their audited ABC circulations than any of their competitors. Our national titles continue to provide advertisers with fast and efficient coverage of a mass audience.
During the year, the Daily Mirror underwent a major redesign enabling the newspaper to fully capitalise on the Group’s new full colour printing capacity.
Growing Digital Portfolio
2008 has seen continued expansion and improvement of the Mirror's digital platforms.
Mirror.co.uk has been extensively re-designed, improving the user experience, interactivity and navigation and bringing with it cutting- edge picture and video capability. This engaging user experience has seen the average time spent reading per page, for online users earning more than £35k p/a, rise to double that of thesun.co.uk.
The expanding digital portfolio at Scottish Daily Record & Sunday Mail Ltd includes the websites of the core newspaper brands as well as key classified websites. The rapidly growing portfolio complements our print brands and offers new advertising packages and opportunities, allowing unrivalled reach of the Scottish marketplace.
Continuing the group mission to provide greater opportunities for our readers to interact with our brands, when and how they like, the Nationals division launched two mobile sites at the end of 2008.
Mirror Mobile and Scottish Daily Record Mobile further establish us as a multi-platform publishing business and have gone to market with a unique personalisation tool and rich news content to ensure that we are leading the way in mobile news publishing in the UK. The sites have received good critical acclaim from consumers, trade and industry press. Mirror Mobile is now reaching around 100.000 monthly unique users and 2009 will see Mirror Mobile on carrier portal for 02, Vodafone and Tesco mobile, exposing our brands to an audience of 38m mobile users.
National Readership Survey
The 2008 National Readership Survey revealed that the National's Daily titles are read for longer than key red-top competition, an important measure for advertisers and an indication of value to the reader.
Award Winning
The success of our Nationals was recognised through numerous industry awards during 2008. These included:
- The Daily Mirror won 'Best National Newspaper' for clarity of news reporting at the Plain English Campaign Awards
- The Sunday Mirror's Kate Mansey won 'Young Journalist of the Year' and Sean Hamilton won 'Showbiz Reporter of the Year' at the British Press Awards
- For the second year running, the Daily Record was voted Scottish ‘Newspaper of the Year’ at the Scottish Press Awards, the first time any newspaper has twice achieved this accolade.
- At the Scottish Press Awards, the Daily Record also picked up awards for 'Front Page of the Year', 'Journalist Team of the Year', 'Campaign of the Year'. Columnist Joan Burnie was awarded a 'Lifetime Achievement' accolade and the Sunday Mail's Charles Lavery won 'Reporter of the Year.'
- At the Scottish Media Awards, The Daily Record and Sunday Mail teams scooped top honours for 'National Classified' and 'National Display Sales', 'Marketing Campaign of the Year' and 'Client Pitch of the Year'. They were also highly commended in the 'Promo of the Year' category and for the launch of Record PM.
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