A New Story Lead for the Newspaper Industry: Newspaper Websites Are Contributing to Audience Growth

NEW YORK, Aug. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Scarborough Research, the leading authority for newspaper audience ratings and consumer behavior information, finds that the "online exclusive" audience of newspapers -- or the audience that visits a newspaper's website but does not read the printed edition -- can account for two to fifteen percent of a publication's Integrated Newspaper Audience -- or the combined print/website audience. This represents a gain of hundreds of thousands of readers for many papers in larger markets.

Today, Scarborough Research issued a white paper on Integrated Newspaper Audience (available for download at http://www.scarborough.com/newspaperstudy/INA-WhitePaper.pdf). The white paper draws upon Scarborough's newspaper audience information in the top 25 local U.S. markets and interviews with industry executives to examine the potential of online newspaper audiences. The paper identified several key factors that contribute to audience growth online, including unique website content, high local-market Internet penetration, heavy cross-promotion, and integration of the website into the core newspaper business.

"With all of the negativity the newspaper industry has been subject to, we are pleased to report that our analysis finds a positive story headline: newspapers are successfully extending their audience online. Newspaper websites are attracting people that may not read the printed paper, resulting in audience growth overall," said Gary Meo, Senior Vice President, Print and Internet Services, Scarborough Research. "Demonstrating the strength of the combined print and Internet audience is critical to the future of the newspaper industry and that's what the Integrated Newspaper Audience metric does. It quantifies the newspaper audience in ways that circulation or print readership alone cannot."

Scarborough introduced the Integrated Newspaper Audience metric last year to quantify the combined local-market reach of printed newspapers and their websites. As more consumers turn to the Internet for news and information, newspapers continue to be focused on extending their brands -- and growing their audiences -- online.

"One of the most pronounced success factors that emerged from our conversations with industry executives is that integration contributes to the success of newspaper websites," said Mr. Meo. "At the newspapers we spoke with, their websites are an integral and essential part of the business strategy to grow audience. For these newspapers, the integration of the website into the company's overall business is a key factor."

The analysis also examined the demographic characteristics of the Integrated Newspaper Audience. Newspaper website audiences are educated, affluent and young, dispelling a common misperception that young people are not engaged by newspaper content.

Integrated Newspaper Audience is the combined net reach of a newspaper's weekly print and online audiences. The metric represents an accurate net of print and Internet audiences as the media behavior information is collected from the same group of survey respondents. Scarborough provides this information for newspapers and their websites in 80 U.S. markets.

SOURCE: Scarborough Research 2005. The data in this report is from the Scarborough Local Market Studies, Release 2 2005 (12 months), in the top 25 markets.

About Scarborough Research Newspaper Readership Ratings

Since 1974, Scarborough Research has been the currency for newspaper readership data. Scarborough measures daily readership, Sunday readership, and daily section readership and now the latest metric that combines print and online readership: Integrated Newspaper Audience. Scarborough's newspaper data is MRC (Media Rating Council) accredited. Hundreds of newspapers across the United States, along with the advertisers and agencies they serve, rely on Scarborough insights to demonstrate the value of newspaper audiences and measure ROI for newspaper advertising investments.

About Scarborough Research

Scarborough Research (http://www.scarborough.com/, info@scarborough.com) measures the lifestyle and shopping patterns, media behaviors, and demographics of American consumers. Products and services include local market consumer insight studies in 80 Top-Tier Markets (comprised of the Top Cities in the US) and 6 Mid-Tier Markets (comprised of smaller U.S. cities), Scarborough USA+ (a national database), Scarborough Multi-Market Database, Hispanic studies, customer relationship management and database integration solutions. With more than 30 years of experience, Scarborough measures more than 1,700 categories and serves a broad client base of more than 3,500 subscribers including marketers, advertising agencies, electronic and print media, broadcast and cable television, radio stations, sports teams and leagues, and out-of-home companies. Surveying more than 210,000 adults annually, Scarborough is a joint venture between Arbitron Inc. and VNU Media Measurement & Information.