Newspapers are Alive and Kicking (On line that is)

I just read about how many people who read the paper, and I do not mean just the morning paper. Today the paper is online, searchable and yesterday’s paper is there too. The media feeding frenzy that is going on now with Thomson / Reuters (TOC / RTR.L), News Corp (NWS) / Dow Jones (DJ), may be a fight into the push / pull of shrinking and expanding revenue and profit streams. We certainly see where the growth is and isn’t. That is also why Google-phobia remains headline news as the media has not embraced the encapsulated display of their editorial on Google (GOOG) even though it drives new unique traffic. There are big bucks out there and some firms just don’t want to share.

Here are the stats edited for relevance:

According to analysis by Nielsen//NetRatings for the Newspaper Association of America, more than 59 million people (37.6% of all active Internet users) visited newspaper Web sites during the first quarter of 2007, a record number that represents a 5.3% increase over last year.

These Web site visitors generated nearly three billion page views per month throughout the quarter, compared to just under 2.7 billion last year.

According to data from Scarborough Research, Newspaper Web sites have helped drive a 13.7% increase in total newspaper audience for 25- to 34-year-olds and a 9.2% increase for 18- to 24-year-olds. 

Users continue to increase the amount of time they spend on newspaper Web sites with the average visitor spending more than 45 minutes per month during the quarter, an 11.5% increase over this time last year.

First Quarter Online Newspaper Audience
Month	Audience (mil)	% Reach	Page Views (bil)	Visits/Person
2007
January	58.9	37.6	3.2	8.7
February	58.8	37.5	2.8	7.9
March	59.6	37.7	3.0	8.6
Avg Q1	59.1	37.6	3.0	8.4
2006
January	56.5	36.6	2.7	8.2
February	53.9	35.7	2.6	8.0
March	57.9	37.6	2.7	8.1
Avg Q1	56.1	36.6	2.7	8.1
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings Custom Analysis, April 2007

The bottom line is the new math in news is the combination of growing the top and bottom lines online. Monetizing traffic is the job of the business side and selling ads is not a new discipline. The billion dollar question is: how else can the media monetize the traffic they have? The answer will separate the winners from the losers.

Looking at Murdock’s hunt for Dow Jones, besides the ads, my credit card gets a work out just for my privilege of reading the WSJ and Barron’s on-line.

If you have friends in online media in NY, Chicago, London, Paris or CA, you know they can change jobs and move up with just a phone call. There is gold in those page views, especially where quality writing intersects with a focused audience.

Disclosure: Mr. Corn is CEO of Clear Asset Management LLC and is long Google (GOOG) through his portfolio holdings.