Circulation numbers for newspapers nationally are down 5% according to the latest figures; the T&G is down 9.3%. If this is because of their paywall, then the real question for the future of a viable press in Worcester is the profitability of the paywall.
Update: On second thought, the paywall may have helped circulation. More below.
What would the logic/reasoning for the paywall reducing circulation be?
Joe: Good point. I’m confusing paid circulation with traffic. When they turned off their paywall a few years back, they lost like 6% of their circulation. So if they’re still using the same formula to calculate circulation, the paywall presumably helped total paid circulation.
Yeah, my subscriptions up and I usually let it lapse for a few weeks till they offer it to us for half price….
Don’t know if I will do that this time. At work I block T&G cookies, but at home I log in. I don’t really want to lose online access.
Found this link at WorcesterWonderland. Confirms the drop in traffic:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/telegram.com/
Peter Kafka gets deeper into the T&G site stats here:
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20101019/a-newspaper-paywall-goes-up-and-so-do-visitor-numbers/
At least one traffic-measuring site, and the NYT CEO, say the #s are up for unique visitors.
Looks like it was price increases that did it:
http://www.pieandcoffee.org/2010/10/25/t-other-papers-down-5-percent/#more-3337
Also, while paid readership is down, total readership seems to be up because of more uniques on the website…
If folks block T&G cookies, wouldn’t they then appear as unique visitors, giving the impression of more of them?