Associated Newspapers websites and print editions claim to reach a combined audience of 22 million adults a month – 45 per cent of all adults in Great Britain, according to figures released by the group’s digital division today.

The survey of 60,000 readers, which was conducted across Associated Northcliffe Digital’s (AND) network of 38 websites, used a questionnaire to profile the age, online behaviour and print reading habits of respondents.

Those polled were also questioned about specific subject areas of the larger sites to investigate how users differ between these sections.

The information gathered will be used to create advertising campaigns relevant to several sites or areas, a press release from the company said.

The final figures were produced by Survey Interactive, which is also involved in developing a new audience measurement tool for Trinity Mirror’s websites.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk last month, Guy Lipscombe, managing director of Survey Interactive, said the polling technology can give figures on the ‘unduplicated reach’ of a title – the number of unique users to a site who do not also read a print edition.

The system, he said, is based on ‘measuring the people not computers’ who view a site, preventing duplicate records as a person accesses a site across a range of devices.

However, it is unclear as to how information would be gathered to disregard users that read both the print and online versions. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to see these ‘unduplicated’ stats?