‘Seattle P-I’ Site Traffic Plunges 23% Following Cancellation of Print Ed.
Newspapers that are considering remaining in existence by going online-only will be concerned to hear that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has seen its unique users drop significantly since it ceased publishing a print edition.
The paper’s website, Seattlepi.com, was down 23% in unique users in March, compared to March 2008, to 1.4 million unique visitors. It also fell off the list of top 30 newspaper websites, writes Broadcasting & Cable.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s competitor, the Seattle Times, acquired a significant number of readers in March, up 70% to 2.2 million uniques.
Meanwhile, most of the other papers in the list of top 30 websites experienced double-digit growth in March over the previous March. The New York Times was up 7% - though online revenue in the first quarter dipped 8%.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped publishing a print edition in March. Its website was rejiggered, and now features mostly commentary, advice and links to other news sites, though it does maintain some original reporting. Some current and former government officials, including a former mayor, a former police chief and the current head of Seattle schools, are writing columns, and a number of the paper’s popular columnists and bloggers are continuing to write for the site, which is also offering repackaged material from Hearst’s stable of magazines.
Scarborough Research says the number of adults who have read newspapers online-only during the week is just 4%.
Zenith Optimedia predicts that newspaper ad spending will slump 12% in 2009.
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