Nationals influence growing despite circulation falls?

February 24, 2006

Could the influence of some UK national newspapers be growing, despite a decline in circulation?

Stephen Davies has compiled a list of year-on-year circulation changes for the nationals at PR Blogger. He argues that the decline in overall circulation is evidence that we should share with clients to prove that they should be looking more at online media. And he’s right.

I also think that alongside analysis of print circulation we need to have stats for newspaper brands’ online performance to hand. How many people download the Telegraph podcast? How many unique visitors does The Times get? What’s the FT‘s subscriber base looking like these days and which countries are they in?

I would argue, for instance, that The Guardian is becoming more influential than ever, given its global online readership. Simon Waldman, its online publisher, discusses its significance here.

If you take a look at Technorati’s analysis of top global media sources on the web, you find The Guardian is 8th (with The Times 14th and The Daily Telegraph 29th).

A good showing for UK papers, to say the least, but also a reminder of their continued and even growing influence on the web.

Recent analyses of major business stories both on blogs and mainstream media online by myself and colleagues showed that wires and global news sites (including the UK titles I mentioned) were initiators of almost all the major stories still. Blogs were important and influential, but as amplifiers – the stories were still started by the nationals.

Antony Mayfield

Public notebook

2 responses to “Nationals influence growing despite circulation falls?”

Stephen Davies

February 24, 2006 at 11:43 pm

Great point Antony. Your last paragraph is particularly interesting. Indeed, the mainstream media is still in control but I can’t help thinking (and I could be wrong)that they’re aren’t the domineering force they once were.

Their online influence is huge but they’re still struggling to find a decent business model and since the introduction of blogs we’re seeing micro news sources, which collectively, can be a pretty powerful force.

But you’re right – big news stories aren’t broke by bloggers but by the major news outlets, and for now, tech news is by far the most covered topic over the blogosphere.

I wonder if regular news becomes as predominant among bloggers as what tech news is now? Similar to a comment you made in one of your posts on a BBC News/Digg mashup. That would be interesting!

BTW I sent you an invite to the beta testing of newsvine (www.newsvine.com). Similar to your idea but with AP stories instead. Did you get it? If not I can send you another one over?
Antony

February 25, 2006 at 2:53 am

I think that non-tech news will become more prevalent, for sure. The fascination of tech news services like Digg is that we’re seeing people playing with the new models of media distribution, aggregation etc. I’m sure some will survive and enter the mainstream.

Cheers, Stephen. I signed up for Newsvine a while back but I haven’t been back to it much. How do you rate it – worth spending some time on?