Seattle P-I Makes the Top 20 U.S. News Sites

With 1,967,000 unique visitors in March, the P-I comes in twentieth, in fact, according to the Nielsen ratings of the U.S. online news field. (Oddly, that's a drop of 8% from March last year.) The Seattle Times didn't crack the top 30, so we don't know where they're at. But Village Voice Media, the alien overlords who run the Seattle Weekly, can boast a 12th-place finish, with about 2.8 million visitors to their network.

This raises, again, the question of why newspapers aren't making it. We're not sure what the P-I's monthly cume (newsie talk for cumulative readership) for print is, but we'd guess that their web audience is an order of magnitude greater. And yet the rumor is that the P-I has plans to lay off more staff, following in the Seattle Times' downsizing footsteps.

Newspapers invented classified ads, real estate pullouts, and soap samples in delivery bags. Now they have audience reach their forebears couldn't dream of and what have they come up with that's new for the web? We can't think of a single thing. Most newspapers' efforts have been to try to reproduce the physical newspaper on the web, complete with display ads. Holy shit. It reminds us of those horseless carriages that looked very much like carriages without a horse in front.

(Excuse us. We get a little exercised on this topic. Not only do we know downsized reporters, but we want more and better local news, not wire reports and not--god help us--citizen journalism.)

In other ratings news, the open internet ratings site Quantcast says Seattlest "attracts a slightly male slanted, fairly wealthy, more educated group.The typical visitor reads democraticunderground.com and subscribes to Rolling Stone." Rolling Stone, people? Who subscribes to that? 'Fess up!

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By MvB in News on April 22, 2008 3:00 PM

Comments [rss]

MvB

PIstaffer: the "more" part of the layoffs was in reference to the Seattle Times layoffs--sorry if that didn't come across at first glance. It's my understanding that there's a hiring freeze on at the P-I, and that some positions are not being filled as people leave. As I say, it's a rumor about there being layoffs coming up, but in this market I'll take bets.

PIstaffer

The P-I has not had any layoffs, and there are no plans for "more layoffs."

seadevi

All of a sudden I feel like subscribing to Rolling Stone

jseattle

I don't subscribe to Rolling Stones but I do subscribe to Details. Shameful.

Funny quantcast mention. I was just playing with compete.com and wondering if The Stranger always sees a seasonal slowdown this time of year. Boy, they sure wallop the weakly, though. Why do I look at this stuff? Because it's interesting.

Audrey

I subscribe to Rolling Stone, but that's because I got one of their $100 lifetime subscriptions years ago. I don't know if that deal is still available, as I can't find it on the subscription page.

jessejb

According to Quantcast, Pitchforkmedia's average reader subscribes to Rolling Stone as well!

RonfromBeaconHill

Nickelback???, do people really listen to them?

JR

I would say that demographic probably describes me, and I LOVE Rolling Stone. They have done some amazing pieces, including "Life on the Road with Kid Rock", "Whats Really Behind Nickelback's Hit Music", and "Souja Boy: The New Dylan (Thomas)?"

Troy Morris

"Excuse us. We get a little exercised on this topic. Not only do we know downsized reporters, but we want more and better local news, not wire reports and not--god help us--citizen journalism."

You're forgiven but only because it makes sense.

And perhaps one of the reasons is there is a small, unofficial competition at the P-I to have the most views online.