One of the partners on the Media Community and the Creative Citizen project is the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom. From the outset they were interested in the extent to which Hyperlocal news websites might be something they need to keep statistics on. They understood what they were and the nature of the debate about them (due mainly to the excellent work of their former employee Damian Radcliffe) but they lacked data on how many there are and how often they publish.

Now, with our help, Ofcom have published such data. In May I took a snapshot of the stories published by Hyperlocal news websites and worked with Ofcom to ready the data for publication in their annual Communications Market Report.

As a researcher it’s gratifying to see one’s work in such a significant document but equally, as a Hyperlocal publisher myself, it’s great that we have a recognised benchmark against which we can track growth or otherwise of the sector.

Our partners in the research project, Talk About Local, have blogged their reaction to the report.