In this continuing series of posts about online media properties in Kamloops, today's installment provides an assessment and comparison of local newspaper web sites.
As with the television assessment (posted here), the small number of major newspapers in Kamloops made a straight-up comparison difficult. As a result, I also evaluated the web site of the Prince George Citizen. The Internet is a pretty dynamic place, so I expect that some of the things described below may be obsolete in short order, however as of today this information is as accurate as I can make it.
As indicated back in December when I assessed the online presence of Kamloops radio stations, last spring Borrell Associates reported that newspapers are actually selling more local online video advertising than TV stations, accounting for 50% of total online video ad revenue whereas TV generated just 20%. It's difficult to sell advertising when you can't deliver eyeballs however, so this finding suggests that by and large, newspapers are embracing the Internet as a fundamental element of their revenue and content distribution strategies.
Not surprisingly, what I found is that two of the three newspaper web sites reviewed - Kamloops This Week and Prince George Citizen - did in fact present a much more compelling experience than the broadcaster web sites based in Kamloops. The web site for the Kamloops Daily News meanwhile, appears to be about even with local broadcaster web sites. The most fascinating aspect of the Kamloops News site is that it publishes web traffic statistics, which indicate that the site draws about 5,000 unique visitors per day and about 50,000 unique visitors per month. The busiest time of day is between 3:00 and 3:30 in the afternoon. Most of the traffic is coming from search engines, but while this means the site is drawing in many new visitors it also indicates that page views (and ad views, hence revenues) would likely be much higher if the paper implemented a strategy to draw visitors back to the site on a regular and direct basis rather than simply relying upon ad hoc search engine referrals.
Kamloops This Week
- KTW executed a wholesale change to its web site a several months back, which has now pulled its independent site (www.kamloopsthisweek.com) under Black Press' unified www.bclocalnews.com property. The new site is very clean, elegant, and easy to navigate. Using a common web domain also means that more eyeballs come to the single site (representing, for example, visitors from every community served by every Black Press newspaper publication in BC), and so it receives a *lot* of visitors and page views, which in turn are very attractive to advertisers (read: more revenue).
- I do miss the strong just-Kamloops local flavour of the old site. However, the new site now functions as a gateway - not just to national and international news, as is often the case with newspaper chain web sites - but rather as a gateway to the smaller stories that occur in the many medium-to-small communities Black Press services. I find this very attractive; there are few things more interesting to me than the tiny ultra-local stories that typically only get airtime within a specific community. Black Press' www.bclocalnews.com web site now airs all those stories out to the entire distribution network. Facinating.
- Both the old and new web sites delivered some manner of breaking stories (i.e. stories that have not yet appeared in the newspaper, may evolve before they are published, or may simply never actually appear in the newspaper itself). The first time I saw this was during summer 2007 when Kamloops This Week published minutes-old breaking news of the Kamloops Blazer General Meeting (at which the club was sold) online; I read it from Salmon Arm while on vacation there.
- The newspaper is integrating its on- and off-line news strategies, as has been made evident by stories in the newspaper, which occasionally include an "On The Web" ad that directs readers to "Go online to www.kamloopsthisweek.com for more information... ". Leveraging the web site this way makes a lot of sense, as there are no space limitations on the web (meaning one can publish a veritable never-ending story, kind of like this post) online whereas the print version is constrained by the physical dimensions of the pages, but also because readers who do go online might see completely different advertisements there, meaning the publisher can maximize the revenue potential of a single story.
- The web site includes an impressive array of online photo galleries (Dave Eagles), all available for purchase as framed or unframed hard copies.
- Integrated with other Black Press properties/networks for careers, automotive, etc.
Is currently utilizing ads from both Yahoo Google ad networks; I suspect the intent here may be a side-by-side test to determine which service generates the most click-thrus, and hence, the most revenue for the site - In a related feature, the www.bclocalnews.com web site also features blogs written by Black Press staff, including this post by Editor Bill Phillips of the Prince George Free Press in which he discusses how that paper now reports news as it happens, including video on the web site, rather than simply focusing on print distribution.
- Black Press is obviously growing capacity and skills within its New Media division, given recent advertisements for a variety of online and "New Media" positions including Regional Online Consultant, On-line Producer, etc.
- I will credit Kamloops This Week for the initiative shown by two of its most visible personalities - Dale Bass and Christopher Foulds - each of whom run blogs at http://dalebass.blogspot.com and http://chrisfoulds.blogspot.com respectively. The blogs contribute to their employer's overall web presence in a variety of ways, including:
- The blogging process helps both of writers personally acquire know-how about the online community from the perspectives of both of consumers and publishers. This is a good thing, as I believe that there is opportunity for traditional media outlets to leverage and exploit the activities of bloggers and other online citizens to drive more eyeballs (and hence more revenue) toward their own media organizations.
- Blogs are often perceived to be much more personal and interactive than commercial media web sites, so these blogs promote more buy-in from readers who might not otherwise develop similar emotional connections to the personalities and columns when they appear in the newspaper.
Prince George Citizen
- Blogging service for readers - important because it may keep novices from starting their own (competitive) blog, but also encourages bloggers of all stripes to post their own comments, including links back to their own blogs
- Photo galleries back to November 2006, includes viewing stats and viewer votes, ability to purchases
- Not all newspaper stories are published online, although online content subscriptions are being considered for the future. Not all online stories are published in newspaper.
- Is now incorporating video reports into some stories, which is significantly blurring the line between this newspaper enterprise broadcast media. In fact, both the Prince George Citizen and the Prince George Free Press (a Black Press publication, as above) have begun to deliver video news on their web sites, so PG is apparently leading the way within the BC Interior towards an increasingly popular and rewarding media convergence.
Kamloops Daily News
- The Prince George Citizen (which has been included in this comparison) is one of the Kamloops Daily News' sister web sites, and it appears that the Citizen's Internet department is also hosting at least a portion of the Daily News' web site. This is a positive for the Kamloops Daily News, as it
suggest to me that the Kamloops Daily News may adopt a cookie-cutter copy of the Citizen's web site at some point. This would allow the Daily News to fast forward towards a more competitive online presence, as the Prince George Citizen has a lot of great content and great features. Unfortunately the visual presentation of the Citizen's web site somewhat overwhelming; a little design simplicity would go a long way to streamlining the user experience, encouraging longer visits, and consequently increasing the page views, ad views and revenues. - It is interesting to see that The News has also incorporated a Fundata investment fund search and reporting feature. Fundata is 50% owned by Kamloops Daily News parent company, Glacier Ventures.
- Here again, I will credit the Kamloops Daily News for a blog written by one of that paper's senior staff members - Sports Editor Greg Drinnan - who publishes his Taking Note sports blog at http://gdrinnan.blogspot.com. Mr. Drinnan also publishes traffic statistics on his blog; the metrics used are a little different between the two sites, but if I am accurately drawing a parallel between between "page views" and "Visits incl. Reloads", these stats indicate he is drawing nearly 1/4 as much traffic as the main Kamloops Daily News web site.
| Newspaper | Kamloops This Week | Kamloops Daily News | Prince George Citizen |
| Link | www.kamloopsthisweek.com | www.kamloopsnews.ca | www.princegeorgecitizen.com |
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