The impact of web traffic on revenues of traditional newspaper publishers Disaggregated data for online and offline segments were not available on a consistent basis across countries. The availability of separated online revenues would have allowed for the assessment of the impact of total web traffic on that segment only; however, the aggregated data do not impact the robustness of the results. In addition, considering the total revenues allows the analysis to examine possible cross-segment effects of website traffic or circulation. The results show a positive relationship between website visits and revenue generated by publishers, with a 10% increase in total website traffic increasing publishers’ revenues by an estimated 0.64%. The share of referral traffic to newspaper publishers’ websites has been around 66% across the four countries for this period. This suggests that a 10% increase in referral traffic alone is associated with an estimated 0.42% increase in publishers’ overall revenues. Based on these results, and assuming the effects hold for all publishers in a market, the value of referral traffic to news sites across the four markets in 2014 would be €746m. Country-level impacts are proportional to the size of the market: publishers in Germany, the biggest market in the study, experienced the highest impact worth €326m, followed by the UK (€208m), and France (€148m). Spanish publishers generated an estimated €264m through referrals in 2014. The value of a single visit is estimated to range from €0.04 to €0.08. On average, the visitors who access a news site directly view more pages than those who arrive from other referral sources, although the value of each page view does not vary with the source of access. Table 1: Impact of total web and referral traffic on publishers’ revenues (2014) Market Publishers’ total Estimated value of total Estimated value of referral revenue (€bn) web traffic (€m) traffic (€m) France 3.5 224 148 Germany 7.7 494 326 Spain 1.5 96 64 UK 4.9 314 208 Total 17.6 1,128 746 Figure 1: Estimated value of referral traffic to newspaper publishers $326m $208m $148m $64m Source: Deloitte analysis based on sources and methodologies described in the report. Figures may not sum due to rounding Conclusion In summary, this study has estimated the value of total web traffic for newspaper publishers and focussed on the contribution of referral traffic to publishers’ revenues. Referral traffic to news websites delivered an estimated €746m in online revenues to publishers in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK in 2014. This represents 4.2% of the publishers’ overall revenues and there exist wider impacts of the Internet on newspaper publishers, the contribution is important in the context of the overall declining trend of traditional print revenues. The current share of publishers’ revenues driven by referral traffic and the expected growth of internet usage suggest that there may be an opportunity for newspaper publishers to further increase visits to their websites and the associated revenues. Deloitte LLP. 4