31.1% fewer page views on top 20 Polish editorial content sites
Media consumption

31.1% fewer page views on top 20 Polish editorial content sites

The first days in which the new copyright laws took effect, on the Internet resulted in a drop in traffic from social media. Data from the Mediapanel PBI and Gemius survey shows that the 20 largest Polish sites with editorial content between September 20-29 recorded 31.1% fewer page views coming from social media than between August 30 and September 8. The percentage share of traffic from social media on these sites, already relatively small, declined even further, dropping from 1.9% to just 1.4%. The naszemiasto.pl service lost the most page views from social media - as many as 6.5 million, while onet.pl lost users - as many as 452,000 RU.

On Friday, September 20, new provisions of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights went into effect in Poland. The law introduced billing for the use of publishers' content by social media platforms. On its first day in force, Facebook changed the presentation of content for links to some Polish sites: only the name of the site and the title of the text that is the link are displayed. The company explained this change by adjusting to the new regulations.

Based on data from the Mediapanel PBI and Gemius surveys, we checked whether the decision caused changes in the traffic structure for online publishers. We analyzed the traffic structure for the 20 largest Polish domains with editorial content in terms of reach in the period August 30-September 8 according to the types of sources available in Mediapanel: direct inputs, inputs from search engines, inputs from links, inputs from content aggregators and inputs from social media. We compared data from the periods 30.08-08.09.2024 and 20-29.09.2024, omitting the period 9-15.09 due to increased news interest related to the floods in Lower Silesia. Given that Facebook is the largest social media platform in Poland (25 million users and applications in September this year), the impact of its decision on publishers should be evident in the Mediapanel survey data.

For the period 20-29.09.2024, the PBI and Gemius Mediapanel survey shows declines in the number of page views on selected sites for all types of traffic sources. But while the declines for traffic sources such as direct entries (-4.0%), search engines (-2.3%), links (-4.8%) and content aggregators (-5.9%) are relatively consistent, the decline in traffic from social media is exceptionally large - as much as 31.1% (Fig. 1).

Figure 1 - Comparison of changes in the number of page views for the analyzed domains

changes in copyrights act (2)

Source: Mediapanel PBI and Gemius survey, 30.08-08.09.2024 and 20-29.09.2024.

Of the 20 selected domains, we looked at those that recorded the highest percentage of traffic from social media between 30.08-08.09.2024, ranging from 3.3% (in the case of gazeta.pl) to as much as 21.4% (naszemiasto.pl). Four of the sites recorded a very large decrease in traffic from social media between 30.08-08.09.2024 and and 20-29.09.2024, while the other two recorded slight increases. The total share of traffic from social media for the 20 sites analyzed dropped from 1.9% to 1.4% (Table 1).

Table 1 - Percentage of traffic coming from social media for selected Polish websites that recorded the highest percentage of traffic from this source

Table 1: Percentage of traffic coming from social media for selected Polish websites that recorded the highest percentage of traffic from this source

*businessinsider.com.pl, fakt.pl, gazeta.pl, infor.pl, interia.pl, medonet.pl, money.pl, naszemiasto.pl, o2.pl, onet.pl, polsatnews.pl, pudelek.pl, radiozet.pl, rmf.fm, interia.pl, se.pl, tvn24.pl, wp.pl, wyborcza.pl, sport.pl

Source: Mediapanel PBI and Gemius survey, 30.08-08.09.2024 and 20-29.09.2024.

The largest drops in the number of page views from social media between 30.08-08.09.2024 and 20-29.09.2024 were recorded by 7 sites. In the case of naszemiasto.pl, the drop was the largest, with more than 6.5 million page views. The second in order was se.pl, which recorded a drop of 1 million page views, and the third was onet.pl with less than
1 million page views. The remaining four sites (pudelek.pl, tvn24.pl, fakt.pl and radiozet.pl) saw declines of up to 500,000 page views.

Figure 2 - The biggest drops in the number of page views coming from social media for selected domains

Fig.3: Biggest declines in Real Users coming from social media for analyzed domains

Source: Mediapanel PBI and Gemius survey, 30.08-08.09.2024 and 20-29.09.2024.

Eight sites also recorded large declines in the number of real users coming from social media. The largest drop, by 450 thousand RU, occurred for Onet.pl. Declines of 250-300 thousand RUs were recorded by naszemiasto.pl and pudelek.pl, 150-200 thousand RUs by tvn24.pl, wp.pl and fakt.pl, and 100-150 thousand users by se.pl and radiozet.pl.

Figure 3 - Biggest drops in Real Users coming from social media for analyzed domains

Fig.3: Biggest declines in Real Users coming from social media for analyzed domains

Source: Mediapanel PBI and Gemius survey, 30.08-08.09.2024 and 20-29.09.2024.

The analysis shows that Facebook's decision to change the presentation of publishers' content has become apparent in the traffic coming from social media to the top 20 editorial content sites in Poland. While most publishers have managed to become independent of social media as one of their main sources of traffic, where this dependence is still sizable, the social platforms' decisions have a clear impact on reach.