OVER the course of 2020, more people have visited the Coventry Observer website than ever before and we have had almost double the number page views.
From January 1 to now, almost 900,000 have read stories on our site – amounting to 5.7million views – last year the figure was 3.6million.
As you can imagine, Coronavirus articles dominated the top stories – from the first cases into the city and case and death numbers to the community support, furlough scheme and test and trace.
And Coventry had arguably the biggest positive Coronavirus story when Maggie Keenan became the first person in the world to be receive a Covid vaccine.
One sad victim of the pandemic was Wesley’s Cafe, based at the Methodist Central Hall in New Union Street – more than 20,000 people read that story – and the city’s Ikea also permanently shutting.
Elsewhere there has been a lot of interest in the plans for a new stadium for Coventry City FC with the team currently ground-sharing with Birmingham City FC.
Pete Chambers MBE’s weekly Music Matters also proved popular on our website as well as the print version. His tribute to Bedworth-born Shadows’ bass guitarist Brian ‘Licquorice’ Locking was one of our best-read stories overall with almost 90,000 views.
As the new year approaches, we have a lot more to look forward to than most cities and towns with Coventry being City of Culture in 2021.
We have brought you all the big stories of investment ahead of that honour – including the historic city gates and the Pool Meadow Bus Station.
The first 15 events of Coventry’s City of Culture were also announced back in October – it will be great to see a variety of extravaganzas for all ages and backgrounds get under way.
We want to thank all of you – our readers – for your support over the past 12 months and wish you a happy and healthy new year.
We look forward to bringing you all the latest news, sport, lifestyle and entertainment in what will hopefully be a brighter 2021.
