The Independent's website saw the biggest month-on-month increase in daily visitors among all national newspaper websites in the United Kingdom last month, MediaGuardian reported today. Average daily users were up 12.9 percent from August to September, reaching 553,593, according to data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The Mail Online continued to be the UK's most visited newspaper website, with an average of 2,670,371 daily visitors in September, a rise of 4.6 percent month-on-month. The Guardian's Web traffic was up 5 percent, to 2,038,493. Earlier this week audience research firm Nielsen estimated that an average of 362,000 UK Web users went behind the Times and Sunday Times paywalls between July and September.

According to the latest Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS), 86 percent of Irish citizens are amongst the most avid newspaper readers in Europe; however, this did not help increase circulation numbers across the country.

All Irish newspapers, including daily and weekly titles listed in the latest "Island of Ireland Report" from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), showed lower circulation figures, The Irish Times reported.

According to the figures released by the ABC, The Irish Times saw a circulation drop of 7.6 percent during the period of January to June this year, with 105,742 compared to 114,488 recorded in the first half of last year.

The Irish Independent also witnessed a circulation drop of 4.8 percent, and the Irish Examiner was down 7.3 percent. Among the evening dailies, the Evening Herald saw a decrease in circulation by 5 percent, its weekend edition by 2.3 percent, and Cork's Evening Echo was down by 7.9 percent. In the Sunday editions, The Sunday Tribune witnessed the highest circulation decline of 17.2 percent, followed by Sunday Business Post with 14.1 percent and Sunday Independent by 2.5 percent.

Pearson-owned Financial Times is withdrawing itself from the monthly online audit conducted by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, MediaWeek.co.uk reported today.

Amidst skepticism and disagreement over metrics available to advertisers and agencies for print and online advertising, the move the makes the FT the UK's first national daily to drop its ABCe audit, which could lead to a complete review of the current auditing process in the country. "The FT no longer participates in ABCes as volume traffic measures have become less relevant to our advertisers and clients," a spokesperson for FT was quoted by StrategyEye.com as saying. "We do not intend to compete on volume, rather the quality of our registered and subscriber readership."

Following the path set by its rivals - such as News International, which withdrew its web traffic information data from ABCe prior to introducing the Times paywall - the move has already raised concerns about the viability of ABCe. However, the company still "continues to work with ABCe" as members, under the provison that its sites must be publicly certified at least once within the next year, as stipulated by JICWEBS, the UK committee that defines the auditor's standards, MediaWeek reported.

The interactive unit of the Audit Bureau of Circulations will now audit newspapers' mobile content, a press release from the firm announced.

The new audit will provide publishers and advertisers with independently verified mobile usage data generated from apps, e-readers, and mobile browsers through the Verve publishing platform, as a result of its partnership with Verve Wireless.

"With all the buzz around the iPad and with use of mobile browsers exploding, newspapers and their advertisers are increasingly interested in seeing mobile metrics detailed in ABC reports," Michael Lavery, ABC president and managing director, stated in the press release.

The ABC's Consolidated Media Report, in which ABC is working with ABCi, clients of Verve will now be able to include mobile audience by device type, day and day part, unique visits, page views, audience access points by app and mobile browser or e-reader, Editor&Publisher reported. Verve currently works with more than 600 leading media companies from United States, Canada, and Europe.