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Ever wonder why the Herald does something? Or how? Or "what were they thinking?" Now you can find out. Executive Editor Ken Robertson and Managing Editor Rick Larson will do their best to explain what happens in the TCH newsroom - and why. |
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closeFriday, Apr. 24, 2009
Print provides the power to fuel the web
By Ken Robertson, Herald Executive Editor
Can a newspaper website thrive once it no longer has the power of print behind it?
That’s one of the questions the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s new website-only operation may help answer.
The results as of March 31 suggest the answer is no, especially if the website’s content shrinks dramatically once the print operation ends.
The latest figures from Nielsen Online show the P-I website, which was on its own after March 17, dropped out of the top 30 newspaper websites that month as its traffic, measured in unique visitors, plummeted by 23 percent compared with March 2008.
At the same time, the P-I’s competitor, the Seattle Times, gained 70 percent year over year. Even if much of the Times’ surge in traffic was from the P-I’s demise, the increase still suggests a news website needs plenty of good content to drive traffic.
Among the Tri-City Herald’s sister newspapers in McClatchy Co., the Miami Herald gained 85 percent and the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer gained 106 percent, according to the March report from Nielsen.
For Tri-City Herald readers who might be wondering, tricityherald.com increased its unique visitors by 48.4 percent and its page views by 79.95 percent year over year, both strong performances.
The gain in page views indicates our website users also are spending more time on the site as we’ve added a wider array of content.
One reason for that is we are posting much more breaking news and far more photos on the website than a year ago. And that supports the conclusion the P-I numbers suggest: A news website’s attraction depends on having lots of new information throughout the day.
This suggests the P-I experiment, however noble, is likely to struggle. Without print, the staff isn’t there to support a robust website that attracts lots of readers.
And without lots of readers, a website can’t make enough money from its advertising to flourish — and perhaps not even enough to survive under current operating models.
Time will tell us more.
Ken Robertson: 582-1520; krobertson@tricityherald.com
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