Newspaper Web Sites Grow in Popularity as Circulation Drops

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Newspaper circulation is on the decline, but a new study by Nielsen//NetRatings suggests a bright spot for large papers, and especially the Los Angeles Times: Web sites.


The redesigned LATimes.com saw a sharp jump in its number of unique visitors, a key online measurement standard. The rise in October was 23 percent, to 3.9 million, from the like period a year ago, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.


That compares to an average 11 percent year-over-year growth among the 10 largest sites, giving them 39.3 million unique visitors, or about one of every four Internet users in the U.S.


While the number of unique visitors to LATimes.com is dwarfed by the visitors to NYTimes.com, which had 11.4 million visitors that month the local site ranked fourth on the list.


The site caught up to its more established Northern California counterpart, the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com, which had around 3.9 million visitors, up 4 percent from a year ago.


Robertson Barrett, the Times’ general manager for its interactive services, says that the paper’s internal measurements show 40 percent monthly traffic growth since the site’s redesign in May.


“We’ve seen traffic growth ahead of the rate of many newspaper sites in their markets, in part because we’ve started diverging from the print story lineup, with more emphasis on breaking news and Southern California stories,” Barrett said.


Gerry Davidson, an author of the report and a Nielsen//NetRatings’ senior media analyst, says that the fastest growing sites have recently expanded their offerings to include breaking news, blogs, podcasts and streaming video and audio.


“These interactive features, combined with Internet users’ thirst for up-to-date information, make newspaper Web sites an increasingly appealing choice for news,” Davidson said in the report.


In the past two months, LATimes.com has added several new blogs and podcasts.


The Nielsen//NetRatings report concluded that among adults nationally who read either a print or online newspaper, 22 percent have shifted their preference from offline to online sources, while 71 percent still prefer print and the remaining 7 percent divide their time between the two sources.


Those most likely to visit online newspapers had incomes between $100,000 and $150,000 and a bachelor’s or postgraduate degree, the study said.



Ratings Surprise


Bus stop posters and night club fliers appear to be paying off for the two-month-old Local Television Network, which targets trendsetting young Angelenos. The upstart network, which broadcasts from 8 p.m. to midnight on KVMD-TV (Channel 23), managed the unusual feat of registering Nielsen ratings its first month on the air.


LTN, which launched Oct. 3 with an eclectic mix of shows highlighting the local club scene, shopping venues and activities, generated ratings for 23 of its first 30 nights in its targeted demographic of adults ages 18-34 in the Nielsen’s Los Angeles market. That means at least 0.05 percent of households watched a show on a particular night. (Nielsen has around 800 metered homes representing 5.4 million households in the local market.)


Local Television Network Inc., with headquarters on Hollywood Boulevard, is backed by 10 individual investors and hedge funds that the company has declined to identify.


Santa Monica-based media consultant Michael Kassen said he’s impressed by LTN’s early numbers, but warns that the network will have to keep up the promotion, as well as offer compelling programming, to sustain momentum.


“They’re making good choices in their marketing so far for a network targeting a local audience, but they have to keep up the word-of-mouth,” said Kassen, noting that NBC last month shut down its pop culture cable network Trio because of poor ratings.


Dean Waters, LTN’s marketing vice president, said the network, which primarily targets national and regional advertisers, plans to double its marketing budget in the first quarter of 2006 to expand viewership. It also plans to launch versions of the network in other cities if the Los Angeles model continues to be a success.



Remnant Time


Bid4Spots.com is trying sell radio airtime the way Priceline.com sells airline tickets.


The Encino-based media buyer launched a reverse auction system to fill the unsold airtime and is buying and selling the last-minute radio spots through an online auction system.


Advertisers create the auction by selecting the market, time slot, demographic and station format they want for their spots, then pick the most they’ll pay. Radio stations meeting the market and format criteria participate in the auction. Stations can pre-screen advertisers and their spots to determine if they want to get in on the auctions, which take place Thursdays between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. PST. Winning spots air the following broadcast week.


“Radio stations and advertisers have embraced our reverse auction model as an efficient and highly effective approach to buying and selling remnant inventory because it addresses their individual needs full rate confidentiality for stations and an auction designed to bid the prices down for advertisers,” said Dave Newmark, Bid4Spots.com president and chief executive.


The company, which takes a 15 percent commission off the sales, says that more than 1,100 advertisers in the top 300 radio markets are participating.



Kid Time


To no one’s surprise, a Nickelodeon cable network study finds that kids are consuming more media than the U.S. population overall.


According to the data, children with access to only broadcast TV watch about nine hours less of television per week than those with access to digital cable, who watch about 24 hours a week. Young viewers with satellite television watch about 23 hours, while those with analog cable logged 22 hours.



*Staff reporter Anne Riley-Katz contributed to this column.

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