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Neiman Journalim Lab believe that less than 3% of newspaper reading happens online. Let’s deconstruct this rather audacious claim.

The Claim

We’ll let Mr. Langeveld spell it out -

All generally accepted truths notwithstanding, more than 96 percent of newspaper reading is still done in the print editions, and the online share of the newspaper audience attention is only a bit more than 3 percent.

Let me get this straight – Your whole industry is dying because people are choosing to read online for free instead of paying for print editions. And your reaction to that is claiming that only 3% of newspaper reading is done online.

Facts that NJL use to make their claim.

It’s interesting to note that the NJL article draws inspiration from InkSnuffer‘s claim that in the UK online news reading only accounts for 17% of total news reading. InkSnuffer’s analysis is particularly flawed since it compares ‘pageviews’ of printed guardian newspapers against pageviews at the Guardian website.

I guess people in the UK didn’t have the privilege of experiencing an Internet Boom and Bust to show them the folly of giving credence to pageviews as a metric.  

Let’s jump into a few of the assumptions that Neiman Journalism Lab has used -

1. NAA figures that newspapers had a print audience of 116.8 million (on weekdays), and a Sunday print audience of 134.1 million. Let’s just call it 130 million a month unique readers.
2. They also point out that NAA says online revenue for newspapers is stuck at slightly less than 10 percent of the print revenue.  
3. Figures from the NAA that, taken together with NJL’s analysis, claim online CPM for newspapers is $83 per thousand impressions while for print CPM is $34.62.

Flawed Assumptions NJL are making, and not explicitly stating

1. That only online newspaper reading is news reading. Both InkSniffer and NJL are only counting online newspapers as online news sources. Rather narrow minded.  
2. That the NAA’s figures are correct.
3. That pageviews is a good metric, and that print pageviews can be compared against online pageviews.  

Now let’s refute their claim

Here are a few key reasons their whole argument is nonsensical -

They Should be Looking at Unique Users and Not Page Views.

1. Let’s assume the NAA stats are correct and Print newspapers get 130 million or so unique readers a month. Taking a look at ComScore’s metrics for online news sites -
   

   According to comScore, Google News attracted 16.2 million unique visitors in the U.S. in February, compared to 42.3 million for Yahoo News and 46.2 million for the sites operated by New York Times Digital.

2. Even if we assume it’s the exact same people going to the top 3 sites that’s still 46.2 million people – just for the 3 top news sites. If you throw in local newspapers etc., you’re easily looking at at least 70 million unique users every month.  

Blogs, Social Networks and Sites are BIG News Sources

How can you ignore -

1. Blogs like TechCrunch. 
2. Sports sites like Espn and Yahoo Sports.
3. News Aggregation Sites.  
4. Social Networks.

And so many other places where people get the latest news and updates. 

There’s no way Online CPM > Print CPM, so one of NJL’s analysis, NAA Stats are Wrong

NAA Stats, coupled with NJL analysis, indicate that CPM (cost per thousand page impressions) for online newspapers is 2.5 times the CPM for print newspapers.

There is no way online newspaper sites are making $83 per thousand impressions.

To further highlight the ridiculousness of NJL’s claims, they’re saying that online accounts for only 3% of news reading and still (according to NAA Stats) accounts for nearly 10% of revenue.  If that were the case, every newspaper would be killing their print versions and moving online.

Do have to give NJL credit for illustrating one irrefutable fact …

Newspapers and People in the newspaper industry have absolutely no idea what’s really happening and don’t understand online news … at all.

Filed under: publishing Tagged: | future of newspapers