Using Signal AI, our AI-powered media monitoring and intelligence tool we aggregated, categorised, analysed and ranked the biggest news stories in 2018 as reported by the UK media.
There’s no prize for guessing that Brexit was the most hotly discussed and debated topic last year and took the number one spot based on the volume of media mentions (2,352,000). Brexit news was relentless throughout the year, from economists gloomy predictions on the impact to the UK economy in the FT on January 1st through to the widespread reporting of the PM’s plea for MP’s to back her plan in her New Year message on December 31st. There wasn’t a single day when Brexit didn’t hit the headlines, and in total, Brexit stories accounted for 4.7% of all news generated by UK media sources in 2018. By contrast, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding – ranked 8th place in the report – was the subject of 182,000 articles which represented 0.4% of all UK news stories.
In the chart below you can see the volume of articles on Brexit throughout the year.
Brexit overshadowed all other news. According to the press, no area of British life remained untouched by the EU divorce plans: our borders and businesses, education and the economy, fishing and foreign policy, hospitals and above all else hopes for clarity and stability.
One thing is certain there’s no hope of news on the topic abating with the ‘meaningful vote’ seeing a landslide defeat to May’s Brexit plans and the Government facing a vote of no confidence this evening. In the last 7-days alone there have been over 123,000 Brexit stories in the UK media – see chart below.
To read more about how Brexit featured in the news in 2018 plus the other 99 top stories in the UK media you can download the That Was The News 2018 report here.
Interested in how Signal can help you better monitor and understand what’s happening in your industry? Request a personalised demo today.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cli_user_preference | 1 year | Keeps track of the cookie consents for on the current domain. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | 1 year | Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
JSESSIONID | session | The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
__cf_bm | 30 minutes | This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. |
bcookie | 2 years | LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID. |
bscookie | 2 years | LinkedIn sets this cookie to store performed actions on the website. |
lang | session | LinkedIn sets this cookie to remember a user's language setting. |
lidc | 1 day | LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection. |
UserMatchHistory | 1 month | LinkedIn sets this cookie for LinkedIn Ads ID syncing. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
__utma | 2 years | This cookie is set by Google Analytics and is used to distinguish users and sessions. The cookie is created when the JavaScript library executes and there are no existing __utma cookies. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
__utmb | 30 minutes | Google Analytics sets this cookie, to determine new sessions/visits. __utmb cookie is created when the JavaScript library executes and there are no existing __utma cookies. It is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
__utmc | session | The cookie is set by Google Analytics and is deleted when the user closes the browser. It is used to enable interoperability with urchin.js, which is an older version of Google Analytics and is used in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine new sessions/visits. |
__utmt | 10 minutes | Google Analytics sets this cookie to inhibit request rate. |
__utmz | 6 months | Google Analytics sets this cookie to store the traffic source or campaign by which the visitor reached the site. |
_gat | 1 minute | This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to restrain request rate and thus limit the collection of data on high traffic sites. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
__utmt_sfga | 10 minutes | Set by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to enable website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. |
_ga | 2 years | The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors. |
_gcl_au | 3 months | Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services. |
_gid | 1 day | Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. |
_session_id | 14 days | Cookie set by G2 to store the visitor’s navigation by recording the landing pages. This allows the website to present products and indicate the efficiency of the website. |
CONSENT | 2 years | YouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data. |
pardot | past | The pardot cookie is set while the visitor is logged in as a Pardot user. The cookie indicates an active session and is not used for tracking. |
undefined | never | Wistia sets this cookie to collect data on visitor interaction with the website's video-content, to make the website's video-content more relevant for the visitor. |
vuid | 2 years | Vimeo installs this cookie to collect tracking information by setting a unique ID to embed videos to the website. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
AnalyticsSyncHistory | 1 month | This cookie is set by LinkedIn and is used to store information about the time a sync with the lms_analytics cookie took place for users in the Designated Countries |
gaclientid | 1 month | The Client ID (cid) is a unique identifier for a browser–device pair that helps Google Analytics link user actions on a site. By default, Google Analytics determines unique users using this parameter. |
handl_ip | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie is used to store the IP of the user. |
handl_landing_page | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie is used to store the landing page. |
handl_original_ref | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie is used to store the original referral. |
handl_ref | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie is used to store the referral of the last touch (where user comes from just before a conversion) |
handl_ref_domain | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie is used to store the referral of the last touch (where user comes from just before a conversion) |
handl_url | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie is used to store the url of the last touch (where user comes from just before a conversion) |
handlID | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie is used to store the Unique ID generated by HandL UTM Grabber |
HandLtestDomainName | session | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. To automatically get the domain for tracking (via client side) |
HandLtestDomainNameServer | 1 day | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. To automatically get the domain for tracking (via server side) |
IDE | 1 year 24 days | Google DoubleClick IDE cookies are used to store information about how the user uses the website to present them with relevant ads on embedded YouTube videos and according to the user profile.
|
li_gc | 2 years | This cookie is set by LinkedIn and is used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes |
loglevel | never | Collects data on visitor interaction with the website's video-content - This data is used to make the website's video-content more relevant towards the visitor. |
organic_source | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie sets the organic source href (e.g. https://www.google.com/some/path) |
organic_source_str | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie sets the organic source (Google, Bing, Instagram etc) |
tableau_locale | session | Tableau sets this cookie |
tableau_public_negotiated_locale | session | Tableau sets this cookie |
test_cookie | 15 minutes | The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. |
traffic_source | 1 month | This cookie is set by HandL UTM Grabber plugin. The cookie sets the source to either Paid, Organic, Direct or Referral |
user_agent | 1 month | The user agent (UA) is part of the HTTP header and gets populated whenever a request is made from a client (e.g. your browser) to a server (e.g. a web server). It contains information about the browser and the operating system of your device. |
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | 5 months 27 days | A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. |
YSC | session | YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. |
yt-remote-connected-devices | never | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
yt-remote-device-id | never | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |