The Online News Audience Ryan Thornburg January 2009 www.futureofnews.net | ryan.thornburg@unc.edu

Percent of Population Ever Going Online 1995-2007 2007 – 72%

What does the Internet news audience do? Watch news programs or video clips online 54% Listen to newscasts or news items online 40% Have news on a customized Web page like iGoogle 36% Read blogs about politics or current events 36% Read comments about news stories posted by others 32% Look at lists of the most-read, most-emailed or most-blogged stories on news websites 29% Receive email news alerts or summaries 25% Have news items in an RSS reader 12% Post comments about news stories online 11% read news on a social networking site 10% post news on a social networking site 8% have their own blog 8% post photos, video or information about your community to a news site 6% used news-ranking websites such as reddit.com or digg.com 5% posted a story to a news ranking site 2%

Are we trying to reach new audiences? Or reach old audiences in new ways? Reach

Where Do Readers Come From?

Which one is the homepage?

Time Users Spend on Each Page

A Workday Audience

The Online Reader Arrives at work at 8 a.m. Checks email Checks two or three Web sites Ends up on my site Starts somewhere other than homepage Visits one or two pages Total time anywhere between 15 seconds and three minutes

Arrives at work at 8 a.m.

Checks email

Checks two or three Web sites

Ends up on my site

Starts somewhere other than homepage

Visits one or two pages

Total time anywhere between 15 seconds and three minutes

The Page View Equation Page Views = Unique Visitors x Visits/Visitor x Pages/Visit

Page Views = Unique Visitors x Visits/Visitor x Pages/Visit

Unique Visitors Search Engine Optimization Syndication (Yahoo and RSS) Repeat Visits Serialized Content (Breaking News) Community Deep Visits Email Usability and Navigation

Search Engine Optimization

Syndication (Yahoo and RSS)

Serialized Content (Breaking News)

Community

Email

Usability and Navigation

Billy Browser and Sally Searcher