Can the P-I Switch to Online Only?

By Glenn Fleishman, Monday, February 9, 2009 at 11:43 AM
View Comments

Editor’s Note: TechNerd posted an update to this post here.

•••

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s clock is running down. One possibility floated for its future is to abandon its print edition and become an online-only entity.

How likely is that to happen? The odds seem slim to none, and not just because of the local economy. Dinosaurs don’t turn into hummingbirds overnight, and neither is the P-I likely to make a successful transition despite good metrics.

The P-I has a good audience. The company reports 45 million page views a month from about 4 million visitors. Nielsen puts their visitors lower, at about 2.5 million unique people in December, a busy month, and 1.8 million in November. (The Seattle Times scored 2 million “uniques” and 1.7 million in the same period.) 

But there’s a huge gap in revenue between even such a large online readership and a much smaller print audience. Online ads don’t score as much money per eyeball as print ads because newspapers are still able to charge what one might argue is an inflated rate because of their control over the means of distribution. Everyone can have a virtual printing press online, but an actual printing press, along with distribution, creates an uneven playing field that allows for high prices for business-oriented display advertisements throughout the paper, and the classified section, clumped in the rear—long a cash cow for newspapers before the craigslist era.

I’ve been working with and around Internet advertising since just about the time the first ad was sold back in 1994 on Hotwired.com. From a few million dollars a year in the early days, online ads have grown to about $24 billion from fourth quarter 2007 to 3rd quarter 2008. Borrell Associates, a research firm, puts local advertising a bit below that total. 

This seems like a lot of money, but it’s only a fraction of all U.S. ad dollars. Looking at just newspaper revenue, in the same period of time, (Q4 2007 to Q3 2008), print ads accounted for $37 billion in newspaper income, while online revenue was $3.2 billion. Print ad revenue dropped in third quarter 2008 by nearly 20 percent over the same quarter 2007; online revenue fell just a few percentage points. 

During the time I’ve worked on Internet content, I’ve seen and been part of a number of efforts that tried to use ads to fund online efforts. My own niche content site, Wi-Fi Networking News, once had hundreds of thousands of page views a month, a few years ago when lots of people were trying to figure out how to use and install Wi-Fi networks. An Apple-oriented publication at which I’m an editor gets over 3 million page views a year, and sells all kinds of sponsorships and advertising.

The bottom line is that there’s simply not enough viewers for most niche sites, including ones focused on regional issues, and not enough ways to generate advertising revenue to support more than just a skeleton staff earning far below typical media wages.

My Wi-Fi site, even its best year, couldn’t support a staffer beyond myself; the Mac site I work on is only part of a full-time living for even the folks who run the publication.

The P-I is far and away above those levels of readership, of course. If we look at the P-I’s 45 million page views a month, and break that into the advertising world’s CPM (cost per thousand), that’s 45,000 units that they can sell in some fashion, assuming that they can maintain loyal readers and capture new ones without having a print edition. (Veteran newspaper executive Alan Mutter suggests a lot of page views would be lost after print publication ceased, however.) 

If they could sell several ads per page and sell every single page view they offer, they might be able to generate something on the order of $10 per page per thousand views, or $450,000 per month—$5.4 million per year. (Niche sites can charge more. My Wi-Fi site once had about an $80 CPM when you added up all the ads spots on a page; the more general you get, the far lower the ad rates.)

That’s a reasonable amount of money, but no site sells all its inventory when they have that much to offer; the current ad climate is poor; and $10 per page might be too high an estimate.

Assuming a more reasonable set of assumptions, let’s say that the P-I could pull in the equivalent of $1.5 million per year starting on its first Web-only day from all ad efforts, including sponsorships, advertorial, and other relationships.

That’s enough for a publisher, a handful of back-office folks (programmers, administrative staff), and, with middling salaries and benefits, maybe 10 actual reporters who also act as videographers and podcasters. A lot of functions, including legal, would have to be outsourced. This also sidesteps any union issues the P-I would face in the transition.

For any bigger staff, an investor would need to step in and pour in money, expecting several years of losses, an unlikely option at this point in our economy.

An online-only P-I is somewhat like what Crosscut tried, and has moved away from (the group is talking about becoming a non-profit), but Crosscut didn’t start with the kind of traffic and brand name that the P-I has.

The P-I also may not have acted in time, too, by allowing the departure last year of John Cook and Todd Bishop, two of its most well-known business reporters who poured a lot of time and effort into breaking news online. Cook and Bishop joined the Puget Sound Business Journal staff to launch TechFlash—a focused online effort for regional business reporting. I expect that they took not only their moxie, but a lot of traffic with them as well.

In a few years, the idea of having an advertising supported online local or regional newspaper in which a combination of subscription extras (like Salon.com, limited print editions (like Politico), and occasional print books (like The Seattle Times guide to local schools) will seem perfectly reasonable.

In 2012, with our economy in recovery (one can only hope), and the disappearance in the interim of most second papers in remaining two-newspaper towns, as well as shrinkage in the weekly mainstream and alternative market, advertisers will be anxiously looking for places to spend local dollars.

Local radio and television will likely have also decreased substantially in importance, unless those industries reform themselves, too. Radio stations are being supplanted by Internet radio (streaming music and talk) and podcasts (downloadable, time-shiftable programming).

Broadcast TV has already faced huge declines in viewers, as people move to streaming versions of network broadcasts, services like Hulu.com for archived programs, Netflix’s streaming service for a variety of content, and downloadable services like iTunes.

Even today, Google has had a tough time selling local ads, because Google doesn’t have per se local content. It’s likely that by 2012, the company will have suffered significant reversals because of its inability to diversify revenue much beyond online advertising and providing search results. It may feed 10 times the search results its site does today, but their growth will have tapered off.

All of this means that the store down the street or the national chain with local outlets will be desperately working on strategies that let them focus on customers just down the block or a few miles away.

With radio unlistened to, TV unwatched, and newspapers shells of themselves, where will the money go? To whatever media is left online.

(Disclosures for this week: I write regularly for the Seattle Times, but as a freelancer, so I have no insight into what’s happening inside 1120 John Street. I admire Todd Cook and Todd Bishop, as well as the Seattle P-I online staff, and Crosscut’s efforts. Finally, Publicola is certainly a candidate for taking some of the revenue that print media may leave on the table as that industry implodes, but we’re no P-I, either. Yet.)

TechNerd every Monday. 

  • Glenn Fleishman
    @37: "The Times runs all of the ad sales, printing, and keeps track of website and readership data. It makes sense to get the information from the original source rather than asking the PI to get it for you from the Times. Extra steps add more room for error."

    Tell you what: Next time (assuming there is one), I will cite statistics not just provided by the P-I and from a second independent source (Nielsen) but also from the Times.

    What's been lost in the comments, perhaps, is that the Seattle P-I could have 5 times its current traffic and still be far below what's sustainable for a transition.

    I do hope someone figures out how to keep the name, archives, and identity of the P-I -- or put it in deep freeze for a couple of years, thawing when conditions improve. I'll miss the P-I.
  • Ann
    Glenn,
    The Times runs all of the ad sales, printing, and keeps track of website and readership data. It makes sense to get the information from the original source rather than asking the PI to get it for you from the Times. Extra steps add more room for error.

    Read the JOA. Too few people get what it entails. There is nothing the PI can do about declining ad sales and recruiting new business. (Hearst put itself in that boat through the JOA, so I have little sympathy for them there.)
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @34: Trademark police!

    @35: You're evading my question.

    I asked the P-I for its numbers, as I note in the article and have mentioned since. You're implying that the P-I's understanding of its traffic is worse than the Seattle Times's Web operations. You also seem to be implying throughout that the Post-Intelligencer is not to be trusted. That the P-I is making up numbers.

    That's why I cited the Nielsen reference that you separately agreed was a good source for traffic and used that to contrast the numbers provided by the P-I.

    I don't see why asking the Seattle Times, even though it operates the Web site under a joint agreement, for information about the P-I's traffic makes any sense unless you believe the Times has better information or that the P-I is lying.
  • Ann
    Glenn,
    Consider yourself acknowledged.

    Did you ask the people you know or have known, or just assume?
  • Kat
    If we can go back to picking nits again, Dumpster should be capitalized. :)
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @24: "They don’t print stuff I won’t want to see."

    A much better slogan than "All the news that fits, we print."
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @31: That's not my understanding from the folks I know and have known at the Times and P-I.

    How did you check?

    Also, I see you are unwilling to acknowledge that I cited the sources that you were saying were better than the sources I cited.
  • Ann
    “The JOA puts the Seattle Times in charge of the business end of the website, official counts, and ad revenue. That would be the place to get the most up to date information on the subject, not from the P-I.”

    That’s an incorrect assumption. The P-I provides its own information, and has its own data.


    I checked before writing the above. I did not assume. The information comes from a service paid for by the Seattle TIMES. The data is maintained by the Seattle TIMES. And, the Seattle TIMES passes it along to the PI.
  • Ann
    This Ann is not Ann Bremner. But thanks for the comparison.
  • dtr
    You hit on an important but relatively under-examined point when you say that revenues of $1.5M might sustain 10 reporters or so, plus infrastructure.

    Cutting better than 90 percent of your reporting staff, dropping professional photography for point-and-shoot one-man bands, eliminating wire and picture services (how much of the PI's traffic is generated by those fashion and celebrity slide shows at the top of the page?), any reincarnation of the PI online results in a shell of what the site currently offers.

    (Don't underestimate the value of quality imaging and video. Just because one person can do it all doesn't mean they should.)

    Will that be enough to keep the kind of traffic necessary to generate that kind of revenue if the Times can offer significantly greater staff and resource?

    There's a lot of talk about newspapers migrating to online. But if staff size shrinks to the percentages which can be sustained by online ad revenue only, none of these agencies arguably will be as good as they were when they had print revenue, and print-sized staffs.

    What does that do to audience? I guess we're about to find out.
  • cw
    Probly too late, but correct me if I'm wrong:
    The focus on subscription revenue as an honest-to-goodness stream of cash is misplaced, no?
    I always was told that the price you paid for the paper basically covered the cost of printing it, driving it, and tossing it at your porch.
    That is to say, it was not a profit stream, just a cost-recovery charge.
  • Media Guy
    Glenn: Hearst is not publicly traded.
  • Ron
    Methinks "Ann" is Ann Bremner.

    Either way, she knows way more than Glenn about the situation.

    Thanks for posting Ann. As well as your involvement in the Two-Newspaper Two Committee.
  • Ann
    The newspaper industry may need to entirely implode and be replaced with something new. That might be Publicola or something like it, but I think it’s more likely an association of many newsgathering partners of varying sizes with less monolithic entities in charge. I may just be dreaming.

    The cost of printing and distribution (or filming and broadcasting) used to be what led to consolidation of media. Now, what?


    Owning a newspaper used to be a status symbol in the community.

    But as with many family owned businesses, the founders died, and everyone who knew the founder and his vision died, and the remaining heirs tended to worry more about living off that newspaper founder than keeping his vision alive. A few exceptions exist, but not enough. Watching families sell to Murdoch, eat each other alive over selling anywhere for the best dollar, or letting kin, any kin, as long as the checks kept coming, run the papers into the ground the way Frank Blethen has with the Blethen newspapers, means that when these hard times come along the papers are either just part of a chain based anywhere but where the paper is, or woefully unprepared for the financial crisis we face now.

    We have both situations here. The Blethens care about Seattle, and they are fighting hard to save the Times, but seem to have the business sense of an artichoke.

    In the other corner- many are hoping that Hearst will have a heart and save the PI- at least online. But Hearst PAID someone to take William Randolph Hearst's flagship paper off their hands a few years ago. Why would they feel any sentiment for Seattle? Not when closing the paper can be part of "100 days of Change." So far the PI seems to be the sacrificial lamb in "100 days of Executive Shuffling"

    But
    They do have MSN interests and a tech savvy audience willing to try new things (I would love to get my hands on some sort of newspaper or tabloid sized reader).

    There is also the apparent upcoming failure of the Times. Of course Hearst says it is not buying the Seattle Times, and certainly not paying anything more for the right of first refusal. Hearst knows nobody wants to buy a paper in Seattle- firsthand.

    The Hearst behavior seems to suggest a bit too much certainty in not buying the Times. While at the same time wringing hands and shaking heads about what to do with the possibility of an online only PI.

    Now suddenly buying the Times and rebranding both papers, or doing something creative along those lines- that would be the ultimate wrap up to the "100 days of change."

    Of course Hearst said it was not interested in the Times- and Corporate suits never lie...
  • Paperreader
    I think I'll keep reading the paper. They don't print stuff I won't want to see, like Internet Ego Pissing Matches.
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @13: Stan: "I can’t believe Hearst and Blethen can’t combine some of the AWESOME talent they have into a single entity, both print and online."

    It kills me that neither organization can figure out a legal and sensible way to have a plan that takes them beyond 2010 (or even 2009).

    I have to say that the same shortsightedness that let the newspaper industry, with an average of 25% profit margins, go into a death spiral, including blaming Craig Newmark instead of having created their own solution, is still at work.

    The newspaper industry may need to entirely implode and be replaced with something new. That might be Publicola or something like it, but I think it's more likely an association of many newsgathering partners of varying sizes with less monolithic entities in charge. I may just be dreaming.

    The cost of printing and distribution (or filming and broadcasting) used to be what led to consolidation of media. Now, what?
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @21: "An example- Editor and Publisher’s web site lists the statistics for the top 30 Newspaper web sites every month."

    Not quite. E and P gets this information from Nielsen, a research firm. The article you're mentioning was published January 21. I link to that article in my analysis above.

    "Including the pretty amazing fact that the Seattle P-I is bringing more and more unique visitors to the site each month, even as most other papers are seeing their numbers drop."

    That's not what the Nielsen numbers show. What they show is that other newspapers saw a huge dip after the November elections into the rather dull month of December (in which economic news dominated). The Seattle P-I had a very nice spike in unique visitors, I agree, and I commend them for it. If you recall, a lot of us in Seattle were trapped in our homes for 7 to 10 days in December, which I imagine explained some of that increase, without taking away any of the P-I's effort.

    "The JOA puts the Seattle Times in charge of the business end of the website, official counts, and ad revenue. That would be the place to get the most up to date information on the subject, not from the P-I."

    That's an incorrect assumption. The P-I provides its own information, and has its own data.

    I used the P-I's numbers and used the Nielsen number for unique visitors in the article I linked to (and you're citing as good information) to contrast what the P-I says versus what an independent research firm determined.

    "You suggest that you are basing your statements in your article on real numbers, when it actually seems like you are pulling them out of your ass."

    Asking the P-I, which is part of a publicly traded company, for its traffic and being given an answer, while contrasting that number against Nielsen's research is some kind of invention?

    The ad numbers are well understood in the industry. I deal with this all the time. I know the CPM prices. My assumptions aren't drawn from whole cloth, but from a combination of hands-on knowledge and public information.

    "Don’t get me wrong. I think you are a great writer, I do not think in this case you were much of a reporter."

    You understand the difference between reporting and analysis? I used a variety of numbers that underlie the P-I's current traffic and online ad revenue, and wrote an analysis, showing my assumptions at each step, of why I think the operation can't transition abruptly to online only.

    "If you choose to write about it, take the time to get the numbers verified, or label it pure speculation please. Understand now?"

    Given that I linked to the source you think is most valid, perhaps you might acknowledge that I used valid numbers by your lights.

    The reason I'm engaged in this discussion is that you seem to be living in some alternate world in which statements of fact, and detailed picked-apart sequences of logic somehow are a failure in reporting.
  • Ann
    It has been a while since you did any actual investigative reporting hasn't it? Dumpster diving went out with the invention of shredders and document destruction firms...right about when the AP Stylebook changed on-line to online. All the data you need is out there, if you know what you are doing.

    An example- Editor and Publisher's web site lists the statistics for the top 30 Newspaper web sites every month. Including the pretty amazing fact that the Seattle P-I is bringing more and more unique visitors to the site each month, even as most other papers are seeing their numbers drop. This information is available without going through the local papers at all.

    Another research tip- The JOA puts the Seattle Times in charge of the business end of the website, official counts, and ad revenue. That would be the place to get the most up to date information on the subject, not from the P-I.

    “Do you have no desire to provide the reader with accurate information? Without facts to back up what you write you might as well label it as such and truly inform your readers.”

    I don’t know what in god’s name you’re talking about here.


    I am talking about labeling assumption and opinion as just that. You suggest that you are basing your statements in your article on real numbers, when it actually seems like you are pulling them out of your ass.

    Don't get me wrong. I think you are a great writer, I do not think in this case you were much of a reporter.

    This is one of the issues Seattle will look back on in ten years as something that changed the city, perhaps even the state. With the Times faltering on the brink of bankruptcy, and the Hearst suits playing with people's lives from an office tower in Manhattan, this is something BIG.

    If you choose to write about it, take the time to get the numbers verified, or label it pure speculation please. Understand now?
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @19: "Thorough investigative reporting is “dumpster diving” in your mind? Seriously?"

    How does a reporter obtain proprietary data that belongs to a company? Either by developing sources willing to provide leaked info or by digging through their trash.

    I used good publicly available information that's seemingly trustworthy.

    "Do you have no desire to provide the reader with accurate information? Without facts to back up what you write you might as well label it as such and truly inform your readers."

    I don't know what in god's name you're talking about here.
  • Ann
    Glenn
    Thorough investigative reporting is "dumpster diving" in your mind? Seriously?

    Do you have no desire to provide the reader with accurate information? Without facts to back up what you write you might as well label it as such and truly inform your readers.

    If you get a chance to do that, please let us know where the unsubstantiated cost of operating online only come from. What are the priorities of said venture?

    Newspapers get accused of not keeping up with the changes in technology and media. But your article does the same thing. Looking at the current picture and forcing the future into that mold.

    Something to think about
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @17 (Ann) writes: "This is no longer about the fate of the PI, it is about you, and your inability to let your readers reflect and comment about your provocative story."

    Strange, I thought we were engaged in a dialog here. I didn't know that I was supposed to bring my tablets down from the mount and shut up.

    We clearly have a different idea of what online journalism is about.

    "But then showed such a lack of confidence in yourself that you have to attack your critics."

    Rather, I'm not afraid to make fun of people being ridiculous.

    "Blaming the PI for not handing you gift wrapped data is just sloppy."

    I have to disagree. I don't have internal sources at the P-I, and I used official numbers from the company, plus separate numbers from Nielsen. This is analysis piece; I haven't pretended to go dumpster diving.

    "Please remember that for better or for worse, the blogpapers out there will be the only thing we have keeping government officials and corporations accountable. We need you to be a professional journalist."

    Now we go off the deep end. I have no idea why not engaging in dialog with my readers and commenters somehow destroys my reportorial ability.

    Anyone? Anyone?
  • Ann
    Glenn,
    With every response to comments you post, my respect for you diminishes.

    This is no longer about the fate of the PI, it is about you, and your inability to let your readers reflect and comment about your provocative story.

    A "writer of an article" should allow his article to speak for him. You signed your name to it, put in disclaimers at the end, both signs of a professional. But then showed such a lack of confidence in yourself that you have to attack your critics.

    Blaming the PI for not handing you gift wrapped data is just sloppy.

    Please remember that for better or for worse, the blogpapers out there will be the only thing we have keeping government officials and corporations accountable. We need you to be a professional journalist.
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @14: What Jason said!

    "All of the writers I like to read only occasionally jump back into the fray, allowing readers to reason for themselves rather than feeling a need to rebut any point brought up. That kind of insecurity is what separates the journalists from the bloggers."

    I'm both. What does that make me? Seriously, you're really suggesting it's better for the writer of an article to not engage with his or her readers? S'r'sly?

    "Now that we know it is “online” and not “on-line”, Maybe Glenn can add to our building vocabulary by enlightening us on “Internet” vs. “internet”. Yawn.""

    Ah, you're an engineer, aren't you? Joel chose to use a copy-and-paste set of responses to my article, and I was using something we call "sarcasm," which you must not have heard of.

    I don't claim it was *good* sarcasm.
  • William Danz
    Aaron just wants a place to piss and moan without anyone daring to challenge his pissiness.

    Double YAWN, you whiny crank.
  • Aaron
    Right, a place to have a pissing match rather than make cogent points then let them stand as they will.

    All of the writers I like to read only occasionally jump back into the fray, allowing readers to reason for themselves rather than feeling a need to rebut any point brought up. That kind of insecurity is what separates the journalists from the bloggers.

    Now that we know it is "online" and not "on-line", Maybe Glenn can add to our building vocabulary by enlightening us on "Internet" vs. "internet". Yawn.
  • Call me naive. Call me a dreamer. Call me an idiot or all of the above. I can't believe Hearst and Blethen can't combine some of the AWESOME talent they have into a single entity, both print and online. This market, more than most, has a built in audience, has loads of talent (I include you Glenn, as well as the oft-irritating Mr. Connelly), a huge tech industry, and tons of money. Lower expectations, lower salaries (get over it), lower costs, sell some real estate. Make it a lean, mean, storytelling machine and show the rest of the world how it's done. The Guild and other unions should be trying to make this happen before there are no newspapers at all. People, this isn't Wichita or Green Bay. If any market can figure it out it's this one, one of the last to still have 2 newspapers. It can be done if someone with enough guts and charisma and vision can get involved. Thanks for another great story, Glenn. Appreciated.
  • Jason
    Aaron,

    Replying to your readers isn't navel gazing. It's interacting with your audience. This is the Internet -- maybe you've heard of it?
  • Aaron
    Interesting how 5 out of 7 comments here are navel gazing (a frequent offence of unseasoned writers; camping on their own comment threads in a demonstration of an insecure inability to allow their words to stand as is, even when challenged).

    One thing is for sure, day 1 that the PI stops printing will still see many many hits to SeattlePI.com. Something will be serving up pages at that address - the question remains as to what.
  • Please pick those nits at will.
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @8: I can pick nits with you, Clark, since I know you. I said "Internet" not "online" advertising.
  • Prodigy, and then AOL, had online advertising in the pre-Web "walled garden" era, several years before HotWired did.

    As for the meat of your argument, I'll be commenting on it on my site (miscmedia.com). For now, I agree that a purely online local-news venture is a far different beast from a printed daily with a Web presence. It will need to be conceived, designed, and nurtured (yes, that includes startup-period losses) as such.
  • Glenn Fleishman
    @1: I mentioned subscription models in this article, which is partly how Salon works. I can't recall if you get *no ads,* but you get premium content and less interruption.

    The question is always: What can a publication do that's focused on a mix of subscription revenue and advertising revenue when they switch to a medium in which advertising revenue seems to be paramount.

    There's also add-on premium features like email blasts about breaking news; features that the P-I could license from other sources and resell to their customers; and print books and items.

    @2: "The P-I has quite an online audience, no doubt. But it seems there plug will be pulled too early to reap such benefits." That's my big concern. If they lose the print edition, they could lose a large portion of their audience, apparently. I'm not sure I buy that that happens immediately, though.

    The bottom line is that Internet ad rates are very low eyeball-to-eyeball against print rates.

    Don't get me started on how newspapers could have "beaten" craigslist by adopting and expanding the model without eviscerating their classifieds revenue abruptly. Little imagination.
  • One thing that's often overlooked in this discussion is something Goldy over at HA 1nce pointed out to me (don't know if he's written it): Counting hits as readership is misleading for newspapers.

    Newspapers traditionally talked about readership as the number of people who pick up the paper or had it delivered. These are fans of the paper as a whole. They like the product.

    This isn't clearly the case with hits. A hit can be someone who stumbled on 1 article through a google search. This person can be in Tokyo and have no recurring interest in Seattle or the PI.

    The implication for local advertisers is this: Big numbers don't necessarily mean a local, loyal audience for the paper.

    Meanwhile, it's not clear how to sell ads based on random or long distance hits.

    Just another twist to this topic.
  • Glenn Fleishman
    Also, glad to see you insulting your former colleague, and not providing any detail that backs up your assertion given that you have "inside knowledge" and the rest of us have not seen such numbers.

    I'm happy to be proved wrong about the departure of Todd Bishop and John Cook. I made a very natural assumption: They work doggedly, sometimes night and day, posting a large amount, and sometimes getting huge amounts of Internet "rain" from popular sites linking to them.

    Let's have some of those secret numbers, Joel!
  • Glenn Fleishman
    "The article’s author is pontificating without any original research, insights or inside knowledge of his subject."

    That's the kind of backhanded asinine remark that I didn't expect from someone who read the article. "Original research": I'm sorry that I didn't talk to 100,000 P-I readers. "Insights": My 15-year experience with Internet advertising has no value, I guess. "Inside knowledge": Great, you ready to share? Without leaks from the P-I, I've exposed all my assumptions about revenue and such based on, you know, my paltry 15 years of experience in the area.

    "Typically, he does not include January figures, showing hits on website up to 2.8 million . . . with technology blog getting more hits than Cook at his best."

    I asked the P-I for the latest figures, and was pointed to the statement on the Web site. Where did you get your numbers from? Internally? Nielsen doesn't release its full numbers.

    What does "up to 2.8 million" mean? The numbers I received were 45 million page views and 4 million unique visitors.

    Guess you need some proofreading while you're insulting people.

    "Publicola will not be taking P-I bound revenue if this is the quality of material it puts on-line."

    Ah, I see, you're secretly the Onion's publisher. I haven't seen the phrase hyphenated "on-line" since about 1998.

    Gasbaggery.
  • joel connelly
    The article's author is pontificating without any original research, insights or inside knowledge of his subject.
    Typically, he does not include January figures, showing hits on website up to 2.8 million . . . with technology blog getting more hits than Cook at his best.
    Publicola will not be taking P-I bound revenue if this is the quality of material it puts on-line.
  • I think one of the things that will help newspapers continue to shift online -- especially during our economic woes -- is that online advertising is cheap.

    It will likely remain cheap, and as the economy rebounds, online media will feel the bounce.

    The P-I has quite an online audience, no doubt. But it seems there plug will be pulled too early to reap such benefits.
  • Mistamatic
    Advertising is only one side of revenue for online publications! If the P-I also offered a no-ad subscription version of the paper, I would gladly pay an annual fee to lose the ads altogether and keep my local news coming. I don't understand why this angle is never addressed in the articles about the P-I's imminent demise.
blog comments powered by Disqus