April fired the starting gun on the year’s second quarter – and with springtime already sprung – reader engagement with content associated with the new season bloomed across Ozone’s Premium Web platform.
Time off at Easter grows category
The month began as the long bank holiday weekend ended. With the extra time off work, millions of house-proud, green-fingered and choccy-egg stuffed Brits picked up their hammers or hedge trimmers and turned their attention to the DIY or gardening tasks typically set aside for the start of spring. As such there was a +15% rise for Home & Garden page views. Topics driving growth for the category included Gardening, with a rise of more than a fifth, and Outdoor Decorating, which increased by +95%. Monthly page views for DIY content also grew, rising by +30%.
With the Easter break and school holidays also taking place at the start of April, there was expected reader engagement growth for Family & Relationships, with modest growth of +4%, and Travel, which grew by a fifth to 124m monthly page views. As the first significant chunk of time away from work and education in the year, the Easter holidays boosted Travel. Interest in short-haul destinations in Europe and staycations in the UK were notable growth drivers, with page views up by a quarter and +14% respectively in April.
Another notable content area to benefit from the Easter holidays was Movies. Monthly page views were 2.7x higher than what we’d typically see, based on the past three years. With ways to fill the time off a priority for parents of children out of education, a trip to the cinema to fill up on popcorn and the latest blockbuster releases, including late March release Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, is an easy win.
Epic endurance feats fuel Health Living
Another content area delivering expected reader engagement growth in April was Healthy Living, which by almost a third, making the category one of the month’s top performers. Interest in the content among online readers was fuelled by a trio of epic endurance feats.
First in the middle of the month, a record 30k runners participated in the Manchester Marathon. Then, ‘Hardest Geezer’ Russ Cook completed a year-long challenge to run the full length of Africa. Finally, the London Marathon drove growth, which it has done since the event returned to its spring scheduling following the three years it took place in October during the coronavirus pandemic.
Of nearly 30 million Healthy Living category page views in April, almost half were for the Fitness & Exercise topic, which grew +86% and was driven by 4.4x higher Running page views compared to March. Finally, feeding oneself in the right manner to tackle a 26-mile run drove the Nutrition topic to +84% growth.
As our previous insights have shown, April and the year’s second and third quarters are now as important for brands wishing to connect with fitness-focused Brits. While Q1 is still big for the category, in 2023, Q2 and Q3 were the largest quarters, with nearly two-thirds of annual page views, making it a key time for brands to build consideration and preference.
Global events steal reader attention
Finally in April, two global events stole the nation’s attention. First, a sun-stealing and super rare solar eclipse drove reader engagement with our Science content to +11% growth. Then, Music & Audio page views grew by almost a fifth as Taylor Swift – the stealer of my heart thus far in 2024 – dropped her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. Expect more from Tay Tay’s number one fan soon!
Want more first-party data insight?
Planning Ahead for 2024 with Reading the Nation is our third annual guide to what our nationwide audience is reading across the premium web and it’s packed with content. Created to showcase the sheer scale and value of our unique first-party data, the guide provides insight into the seasonal and topical events driving reader engagement with content across the Ozone platform.
