The seven days to Sunday, 3 September drew the month of August to a close, so this week’s Reading the Nation takes a closer look at the key categories showing the most growth last month.

As well as categories where seasonal growth is expected – such as Events & Attractions, boosted by those seeking things to do over the bank holiday weekend, and Automotive in the lead up to September’s new car registration plate launch – there was topical growth for Business & Finance as retailer Wilko fell into administration.

Top category in the past 7 days

• Our Books & Literature category topped the best sellers list for engagement growth last week as the release of ‘The Last Devil to Die’, the fourth book in the popular Thursday Murder Club series by author, comedian and television personality Richard Osman, grew page views by +45%.

August’s top categories

• +51% growth: Business & Finance, our top performing category by engagement growth last month, grew by +51% vs. July. Almost 218m monthly page views was the highest of 2023. Reader interest was largely driven by troubled high street retailer Wilko’s fall into administration.

• 180m page views: Festivals, family activities and bank holiday events drove engagement with our Fine Art (+36%) and Events & Attractions (+13%) categories in August. Notably, Edinburgh Fringe, Reading and Leeds, All Points East and the Notting Hill Carnival all drove interest.

• +28% growth: The build up to September’s new car registrations fueled Automotive growth, with page views up +28% in August. Readers researching Auto Type, including budget, luxury and electric cars, and Buying & Selling drove topic page views for both by more than +20%.

• 16.9m page views: Our final star performer was our Education with +10% growth, as millions of A-level and GCSE students received their exam results. Unsurprisingly, there was significant growth for the Educational Assessment (5.7x) and College Life (2.5x) topics within the category.

Take Action

• Monthly page views and unique user data is now available in Ozone Ad Manager, making it even easier to highlight when audience engagement grows across the year. Register here to analyse more than 1.2k categories, build bespoke audience segments or request a deal activation.

About Reading the Nation

Reading the Nation will connect you to our broadcast-scale audience – who we see across the Ozone platform in their millions day-in-day-out – to unearth insights into their habits and behaviours when topics start to trend or big stories break.

Check out previous issues of Reading the Nation below: