Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much his Department has spent on producing and maintaining dcmsblog.uk in each of the last five years; and how many unique visitors that blog has received in each such year.

The Department spent £5,550 on redesigning and rebuilding its blog platform in 2014. The blog is hosted on a shared platform and does not incur any additional on-going hosting and maintenance costs. All blog content and production is carried out in-house, which is managed jointly across the communications team with no additional spend.

The breakdown below provides numbers of users to the DCMS blog since 28 July 2011. There is no data available before this date.

These figures show that during 2012 and 2013 the DCMS blog played a key role in supporting a number of high-profile campaigns, including the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, resulting in a higher volume of blogs posted during this time which is reflected in a higher return in traffic. These figures also demonstrate how the blog is consistently meeting its objective to introduce a higher percentage of new audiences to our policies, the sectors we support and the voice of the people who champion them.

· 2015 (to 17 July 2015): 6,984 users, of which 82.4% were new visitors and 17.6% were returning visitors

· 2014: 13,063 users, of which 82.6% were new visitors and 17.4% were returning

· 2013: 26,152 users of which 77.5% were new visitors and 22.5% were returning

· 2012: 38,575 users of which 74.8% were new visitors and 25.2% were returning

· 2011 (from 28 July): 9,667 of which 79.3% were new visitors and 20.7% were returning

Since the DCMS blog was launched in 2010, the Department has gone on to establish itself on a wider range of free social media channels targeted to its audiences and the evolving social media landscape.