Pride month began on Saturday, 1 June to drive reader engagement with related content across the Premium Web, including LGBTQ+ Life and Weddings – more than a decade on from the Marriages (Same-Sex Weddings) Act became law across England, Wales and Scotland.

LGBTQ+ content marches up as Pride month begins

Seasonal Events

• The start of Pride drove expected reader engagement growth with related content across our Premium Web platform. Page views for LGBTQ+ Life content were 2.1x higher and – more than a decade on from same-sex marriage acts becoming law in England, Wales and Scotland – engagement with Weddings content increased by more than a quarter.

Topical News

• Announcing the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the latest game in the successful CoD franchise, Microsoft will make the title immediately available to subscribers of its Game Pass. The news grew reader engagement with Video Gaming content by a third last week.

• Elsewhere, and growing by a quarter in the past seven days, Personal Finance page views grew as leading high-street banks Santander and Natwest both endured issues that affected their customers – a data hack for the former and a mobile and online banking glitch for the latter. Within the category, +74% engagement growth for the Consumer Banking topics was driven by 2.6x higher Bank Account page views, as online readers turned to trusted sources.

Election Corner

• From tough talk on immigration to policy pledges on national service and nationalised big green energy, the first week of campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election drove a +6% rise in Politics engagement, with 67.3m page views the third highest weekly total on record.

Coming Up

June

• Champions League Final: Football page views grew +52% in June last year as Man City won the Champions League final. The 2024 final takes place on Saturday, 1 June.

• EURO 2024: Expect Football engagement to be c.30% higher in June 2024 when UEFA EURO 2024 kicks off on Friday, 14 June. The final takes place on Sunday, 14 July.

• Father’s Day: Planning for the perfect Father’s Day present grew Gifting page views by more than a quarter last year. This year, the occasion takes place on Sunday, 16 June.

• Glastonbury Festival: Headlined this year by Dua Lipa, SZA and Coldplay, expect Festivals page views to increase 3.5x on Glastonbury and the start of summer festival season.

July

• Wimbledon: 31.7m Tennis page views in July 2023 grew +330% month on month on significant reader interest in the Championships Wimbledon.

• British Grand Prix: 10.7m Auto Racing/Formula 1 page views last July when the British Grand Prix took place were +25% higher vs. 2023 season average.

• The Olympic Games: When it began in July 2021, the Tokyo Games drove Olympic Sports page to significant 12x growth month on month.

• The Euros: Last July, interest in the start of the Women’s World Cup drove 305m monthly Football page views – the second highest level ever.

August

• Edinburgh Fringe: Fine Art page views will grow with the Theatre topic increasing by more than 50%. The festival will also drive Comedy Events, from Events & Attractions, to c.3x growth.

• Exam results: A-level and GCSE results drive page views for Exam Results, from Education, to 3.9x growth.

• Paris Games: Paralympics page views were 7.9x higher than normal during the Tokyo Games in August 2021.