Comments on: Online newspaper audience growth: Good news? Not really.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:34:03 +0000

Wait, all these sites have to do is double their viewers in a year? That’s almost too good to be true! Oh, that’s right, it’s one of those things that are really easy to say when you’re not the one who has to do it. It is ridiculous to think that charging news viewers online for content that they have enjoyed in print for hundreds of years is somehow wrong and not, in the long term, the only sustainable course of action. Even if a single news site doubles it’s viewers next year, in turn gaining the revinue from increased advertising, what about next year? What about advertisers adjusting for the inflation of the digital market? People who recognize the fall of quality in newspapers have those who are unwilling to pay for this same service to blame.

By: Its About What I Want to Read – Not What You Want to Write About « Ccccarrie's Blog

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:05:22 +0000

[...] I realize that not everyone agrees with the imminent demise of the world of print journalism and I am holding out hope that it still has a chance, but no one can argue with how truly amazing online journalism has [...]

By: What’s on the News Corp Radar? « excapite

What’s on the News Corp Radar? « excapite — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:44:11 +0000

[...] as Nieman Journalism Lab’s Martin Langeveld explains in a post on the online newspaper audience, online Newspapers represent less than one percent of total U.S. page views. All of which means US [...]

By: Gab GOldenberg

Gab GOldenberg — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:45:20 +0000

While I largely agree with the conclusions, I have some issues with your numbers and analysis.

“Each of the top three news destination on the Web (MSNBC, CNN and Yahoo!News) individually each drew more than half the unique visitors of the entire newspaper industry in March. Year-over-year, MSNBC grew 9 percent, CNN 4 percent, and Yahoo!News 16 percent.”

That would suggest that the 3 totaled over 100% of PVs… not quite logical to me. eg. 3 x Y, where Y > 50%. So at the very least you have 150% and change…

“1.6 page views per reader per day, many of the newspaper site uniques are clearly represent one-time-only traffic.”

Correlation doesn’t imply causation. Some of my highest-PV visitors are new to the site and browse through my archives to enjoy my posts. Conversely, some of my lowest PV visitors are my regular readers, since they only need to check a page or two per visit to read my latest posts.

By: Martin Langeveld

Martin Langeveld — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:13:49 +0000

Alex, I agree that would be useful research. Unfortunately right now the industry is to impressed with the big numbers to be bothered to dig into them for the details.

By: Alex Parker

Alex Parker — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:02:28 +0000

I’d like to see the breakdown of those numbers at a local level. What percentage of online news readership is done on local news sites? That type of growth and data would be of the utmost interest to advertisers, who should realize that the local online presence is still an important arena. The sooner newspapers begin touting their Web sites as THE place to be online locally, the better.

By: Online newspaper audience growth: Good news? Not really. :Newspaper Ad Rate

Online newspaper audience growth: Good news? Not really. :Newspaper Ad Rate — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:20:51 +0000

[...] Continue reading this post at Nieman Journalism Lab. [...]

By: Behind newspaper website traffic numbers « Virtualjournalist

Behind newspaper website traffic numbers « Virtualjournalist — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:18:01 +0000

[...] by virtualjournalist on April 26, 2009 Martin Langeveld pours some cold water on the Newspaper Association of America’s report that traffic to newspaper websites accounted [...]

By: Martin Langeveld

Martin Langeveld — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:11:44 +0000

I agree, Ben, and I made that point. To your question, the traffic to newspaper Web sites via Google News alone has recently been reported to be 19 percent of unique visitors.

By: Ben LaMothe

Ben LaMothe — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:52:03 +0000

I’d be interested to see what percentage of the traffic to newspaper web sites came from content aggregators. Since more people seem to be using aggregators, and more aggregators are popping up, I’d expect that they’d have an impact on uniques. Without the aggregators I imagine the traffic to newspaper Web sites would be lower, not higher.

By: Print is still king: Only 3 percent of newspaper reading happens online » Nieman Journalism Lab

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:26:21 +0000

[...] Online newspaper audience growth: Good news? Not really. [...]