Olivier Bonsart

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02/2010 SIPA/OuestFrance

Monetizing newsmedia :where is the problem ?

Hello everybody,My boss asked me « why do those web sites, with such bigaudiences, don’t get more ads ?Where’s the problem ?

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Newspapers web sites announce hugeaudience!

330 000 copies, 5 millions UV/month

330 000 copies, 6 millions UV/month

123 000 copies, 2,9 millions UV/month

The fact is, in France as elsewhere, newspapers web siteshave huge numbers, much higher than their circulation.We’re talking of millions UV each month, up to 10 or 20times more than copies sold.

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3


Great audience, but no ad

But this is the main problem : Great audience, but no money.And no business model.Newspapers don’t get on the web the money they lose in theprint …

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4


What metrics do we hear about ?

•Circulation of a daily newspaper

•Unique visitors of a web site in one month

•Advertising revenue : display …

I’m quite surprised with the metrics used by media pundits,journalists, and even publishers.I’ve been reading about the weakness of circulation (dailycirculation), and of the strength of the web sites audience(counted in Unique Visitors per month).

For advertising, you never know whether they talk about totaladvertising revenue or commercial advertising, excludingclassifieds.

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=In English you say « counting apples with oranges ».How can we seriously compare a daily circulation with amonthly unique visitor ?I guess it’s forbidden in primary school !

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6


Advertising revenue=

eyeballs * value of these eyeballs

Question 1 : how many eyeballs ?What audience do you sell ?

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7


What is audience ?

Audience = Users * UsageTalking about UV is not enough, we must talkUsage.

Usage = visits * page viewsOr

Usage = visits * time spent

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8


The great illusion of news sitesaudience•In France: 36,7 millions people on the net

•Spending 39 hours 41 minutes per month•Out of 50,4 millions aged 15+

•Out of them:•23 millions visit at least one news site (Google

news included), at least once in a month•7 visits per month on all sites•Spending only 41 minutes per month

Ø That’s less than 1 min 25 sec per day !

A closer look to figures is flabbergasting !In France, many people spend a lot of time on the web, ansit’s soaring.But they are not much interested in news sites !Less than one and a half minute per day for those who visit anews site !

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9


The voice of him that crieth in thewilderness …

We could almost say that our news sites are like …We newspapers people do like voice of God journalism …

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The forgotten power of print

•In France:–41 million read at least one newspaper at

least once in a month (UV !)–35,3 million at least once a week–24 million readers per day–Spending 28 minutes per day

ØThat’s 20 times more than news web sites !

Print is declining (paid circulation).Print is loosing money (mostly from classified andsubscribers)But print is still very powerful : One french out of two spendsalmost half an hour per day !

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Wanna talkeyeballs ?

From an audience point of view, there is no comparisonbetween newspapers and news web sites

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12


Wannatalkrevenue?

This explains why news web sites do not bring a lot ofmoney …

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13


Advertising=

eyeballs * value of these eyeballs

Question 2 : value of these eyeballs ?What money do you get per eyeball ?

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14


A quick survey, just to check …

•Information gathered from 12 INMAfellows

•Print : circulation, readers, number ofissues, number of pages seen/read, timespent, …

•Web : Unique Visitors, days of visits, pageviews, time spent

•For both : advertising turnover, excludingclassified

I wanted to check this new theory.I asked my Inma fellows some figures.

Don’t ask me which newspapers. Figures are coming fromdifferent european and north american countries, with verydifferent levels of web performance.

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Counting apples with apples

•Myaveragenewspaper :– 300 000 copies, 36 pages, 70 % seen/read, weekdays– 900 000 readers per day, 25 minutes per reader– €45 millions advertising (excluding classified)

•myaveragenewspaperonline.com :– 4,4 millions UV, 11,7 million visits per month– 5,4 page views and 6,3 minutes per visit– €8 millions advertising

To compare things seriously, I’ll show you the figures of afictitious newspaper, which is in fact an average of all thedifferent newspapers I could get the figures from.

I first tried with OuestFrance data, then with anothernewspaper, then a third one, and so on.I got the same kind of results with 11 newspapers out of 12.This is why I’ve imagined this average dailynewspaper andits web site.You can benchmark your own performance, and I would loveto receive more data to improve this analysis.

The idea is to build ratios, comparing the web site figure tothe same figure for the print edition: a visit ratio, a page viewratio, a time spent ratio, and an advertising ratio

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16


Counting visits

•Print :•900 000 readers per day * 25,8 days per month =

23 220 000 « visits » per month

•Web :•11 700 000 visits per month

ØWeb/print ratio on visits : 50 %

So let’s count.Visits : newspapers have visitors, they call them readers.This average newspaper has 900 000 visits per day, and ispublished on weekdays. That makes 25.8 issues per month.Thus, we can say this daily gets more than 23 millions visitsper month, while its web site gets a bit less than 12 millionsvisits.The web vs print ratio is 50 % on visits.Does it make sense to you ?Any trouble ?

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Counting page views•Print :

•36 pages, 70 % seen/read => 25 « page views » per« visit »

•25*23 220 000 visits = 580,5 millions page views permonth

•Web :•5,4 page views per visit•5,4*11 700 000 visits = 63,2 millions page views

ØWeb/print ratio on pageviews : 11 %

Now counting page views.Out of the 36 pages of the daily, 70%, or 25 pages are reador seen by an average reader, That makes 25 page viewsper reader per day.Which makes 580 millions page views per month, while theweb site gets 5,4 pages views per visit, say 63 millions pageviews per month.The web vs print ratio is 11%. Print edition brings 9 timesmore page views than the web site. This number can changefrom one newspaper to another, but the print issue is alwaysmuch more powerful for delivering page views.

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18


Counting time spent

•Print :•25 minutes per reader per day (per « visit »)•25 * 23 220 000 visits = 580,5 millions minutes

•Web :•6,3 minutes per visit•6,3 * 11 700 000 visis = 71,3 millions minutes

ØWeb/print ratio on time spent : 13 %

This is a difficult one.Time is pretty well measured for web sites, but it’s not soprecise for newspapers.So, we’ll do it, but stay cautious with the results.Newspapers in my panel have pretty strong web sites.

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What do we get ?

•Visits : 50 %•Page views : 11 %•Time spent : 13 %•Advertising revenue : 19 %

Only one surprise, but a big one: the advertisingperformance of web sites is pretty good, above the pageviews or time spent ratios.

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Time spent and advertisingrevenue (web/print ratios)

0,0%

5,0%

10,0%

15,0%

20,0%

25,0%

30,0%

35,0%

40,0%

45,0%

50,0%

Time spent Turnover

For any of the 12 newspapers, you can check that theadvertising ratio is higher thant the time spent ratio. Allnewspapers have more revenue per minute spent on theirsite than in their print issue.

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21


Conclusion 1 : confirmation

Print newspapers are extremely powerfulat delivering eyeballs.

That’s why they get so much advertising.

The figures are OK with my first analysis

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22


Conclusion 2 : confirmation

Newspaper web sites are not yet aspowerful as their print edition whencounting eyeballs

No surprise

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23


Conclusion 3 : surprise !

Newspaper web sites generatesurprisingly good advertising revenue…compared to the eyeballs they deliver!

They get more advertising revenue perpage or per minute than their printcounterpart.

The good surprise

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24


There is a goodadvertising businessmodel on news web sites !

Unlike what we read and hear, there is a pretty goodadvertising business model for web sites.

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For news web sites, theproblem is notadvertising,it’s audience !

A good business model, but not to be compared with thepaer one.It’s much very difficult for a web sites to reach the sameperformance.Yes, this is the key.

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26


Hard time for newsmedia …

• Paid print circulation keeps on declining

• Classifieds are gone forever

• Web sites get little audience, thus– Get less advertising money than print– Don’t get much money from paid content

ØThe old business model is dead

Our future may not be radiant, with so many bad news.Our web sites will never replace the print edition alone.A web site will never get back the money our print edition isloosing.

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27


New business models ?

• Think about smartphones, ipads , …– Already get much more audience per user– Thus will get more money, from ads, from content or

from apps themselves

• Think about downsizing your costs…

• Think about engaging your audience :crowdsourcing, social medias …

ØThere is a bright digital future to build

But there are many solutions.Not one fits all.Many.

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I may look conservative.I may look pessimistic.I’m not.We live a fascinating moment.

Internet is as important a revolution as Gutenberg’s or eventhe invention of alphabet.Those two brought us civilisation, the Enlightment anddemocracy.We’ll find our way in this digital future.It’s up to us.We are so lucky to live that.

All I’m saying is: let us not lure ourselves with wrong ideas.Facts, only facts !

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Olivier Bonsart

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