HeraldScotland is the fastest growing local news site in the UK, Audit Bureau of Circulation data published today shows.
In the first six months of 2013, we had an average 1.23 million monthly unique browsers compared to 740,000 in the same period in 2012.
The 66% year-on-year growth was achieved at the same time as our paying subscriber base expanded by 70%.
The Herald & Times Group became the first Scottish publisher to introduce a metered paywall for subscribers when HeraldScotland was relaunched in late 2011.
Two months ago, the team behind HeraldScotland were commended in the UK online media awards. We beat six other shortlisted candidates to receive the accolade in the best local/regional news site category, sharing second place with BBC East Midlands, and taking the only Scottish honour at the event. The category winner was the Belfast Telegraph.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
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