Today marks exactly one and a half years since Neatkarīgā started coming out in the digital format. From February 12 to April 14, 2020, the Latvian research company Kantar, with more than 25 years of experience, conducted a survey of the spring phase of the National Press Audience Survey.
3,000 permanent residents of Latvia aged 16 to 74 were surveyed throughout Latvia. According to Kantar, in the spring of 2020, the weekly audience for Neatkarīgā (the number of readers who had read one of the last six issues) was 51 thousand.
At that time, Neatkarīgā lagged behind its main competitors - the newspapers Diena and Latvijas Avīze, each of these publications in the spring of 2020 had a weekly audience of approximately 100 thousand readers. The Kantar survey took place shortly before Neatkarīgā switched to digital format. At the end of May, the weekly audience of Neatkarīgā digital newspaper (the number of unique users who visited Neatkarīgā at least once a week) was between 50 and 60 thousand. Of course, it should be noted that it is not possible to equate the number of unique users with the number of readers. A reader who uses the Internet on two devices - a computer at home and a mobile device outside their home - will be counted as two unique users. The number of unique users listed in Internet statistics is slightly higher than the total number of readers. However, in any case, by switching to digital Neatkarīgā managed to retain most of its readership. After half a year - at the end of October 2020 - the number of unique users of Neatkarīgā increased to 70 thousand, but in May 2021 it reached 80 thousand and continued to grow. In the second half of October this year, the number of unique users was already between 160 and 180 thousand.
In a year and a half, Neatkarīgā tripled its readership. Similar results are shown by companies that perform independent internet traffic measurements. According to Google Analytics, in May 2020, the number of unique users in one month was 170 thousand, while in October of this year it reached 423 thousand. As at least a third of readers in Latvia read mainly in Russian, it follows that in October 2021, every third Latvian adult read Neatkarīgā at least once a month!
One and a half years ago, many of Neatkarīgā's journalists and readers saw the abandonment of the paper format as a deeply tragic change. Some of our colleagues refused to continue working on the digital edition. However, the end of something is always the beginning of something else. When one door closes, another can usually be opened. In a year and a half, Neatkarīgā has managed to reach the same audience in digital format as Neatkarīgā had in the early 1990s, when the circulation of the paper version exceeded 100,000 copies.
Thank you to all the staff and partners who supported us during the transition, but most of all to the loyal readers of Neatkarīgā. You are the reason why we create Neatkarīgā.
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