Research published by communications regulator OFCOM into the size of the UK ‘hyperlocal’ sector reveals that around one in seven (14%) UK adults say they use local community websites at least monthly.

OFCOM’s 2012 Communications Market Report says that local community websites are very important to those that use them, with 37% of users rating the importance of services as 7 or more out of 10. “Although this is not as high as the importance ascribed to TV by viewers (59%), it is greater than other services such as local newspaper websites (27%),” says the report.

OFCOM says there are more than 400 hyperlocal websites [like this one!] in the UK producing almost 2500 news stories a week – or 5.6 stories per week per site.

Links
The full report is available to download from OFCOM as a pdf; the section on hyperlocal websites is from page 103.
Openly Local database of hyperlocal sites