Newspaper Audience - 2006 Annual Report

A variant on the readership story is that some executives want to include online audience, and sometimes unduplicated additional audience reached by youth papers and other niche products, to a new measure called Total Audience Reach. It is clear that by this standard, the typical newspaper company’s audience isn’t shrinking — it’s growing.

There is a new push for a measurement of this dimension. For example, at the Arizona Republic , which is considered a model of strong online presence and strong niche publications, internal research suggests that its website had added its reach beyond its print circulation by 7% online and specialty publication by 13%

It is not yet clear, however, whether such sets of facts will prove persuasive to advertisers. The standard online audience measure is unique visitors per month. Many of those visits are quite brief, not comparable to the half-hour a reader may give to that day’s newspaper. That is partly why online display advertising, while growing quickly, commands much lower rates.