Editor and Publisher reports this month that the Newspaper Audience Database (NADbase) claims more than 55 million “unique visitors” were online with newspaper Web sites during a given month the first half of this year.

Even more encouraging for the ink barrel press are the demos.  They’re seeing impressive growth in 18-34 year olds.  These reports have a familiar broadcast measurement sound to them.  Newspapers now are talking about “total audience” measurements.  Paid circulation still appears to be the key metric, but advertisers used to how radio and TV report their numbers could very likely appreciate continuing to see these NAA reports, too.

According to the E&P online article, "NADbase puts newspapers on a more level playing field," said Audrea Fulton, vice president, director of print, at Carat. "We also view NADbase as a positive step forward to understand how newspapers function."

Now, according to John Kimball, the NAA's senior vice president and CMO, the new metrics also give advertisers some qualitative input on who’s reading online and seeing their ads.

But, TV News Remains Your Favorite

For now, television news still is the most popular American traditional medium for information.  According to a Radio-TV News Directors Foundation study, 65.5% of us choose the tube, first.  Newspapers are a very distant second at 28.4%, while the Internet is the third favorite, coming in at 11.2%.

(It’s curious, and troubling, to Interviewing that radio rarely is mentioned as a source despite the fact it reaches so many millions of people each week. Indeed, far more probably listen to radio than read newspapers in the U.S.  Yet, radio has become so much a utility that, like a water spigot, you take it for granted when you turn it on that noise will come out.  It’s only when you get dead air, or hash and static, that you notice.)

Here are highlights quoted from the RTNDF study:

• · The public is showing a strong interest in serious news. National and international news rank second and third, just behind weather, in interest. Information about sports and entertainment ranked at the bottom.
• · More than 90 percent said it is very important or somewhat important for news to be right up to the minute. The public was most interested in urgent, breaking news but some complained about mislabeling of news that is neither urgent nor breaking.
• · People want to be able to watch news when it is convenient for them. Decisions to watch news appear to be based on having the time available, rather than to watch something specific that they have heard about.
• · Two-thirds of the public say they have never read a blog or don't know what they are.
• · Less than 5 percent of the public has ever watched news on a small screen device such as a mobile phone or handheld electronic device.
• · More than three-quarters of the public prefer to watch news on a television set, rather than a computer or handheld electronic device, and more than 60 percent would like to perform on TV the functions they now perform on a computer. If given a choice of getting the same news whenever they want via any medium, the public also prefers to get news on television.
• · The public desires more interactivity with television news. More than 40 percent of the public would like the ability to assemble their own newscasts. More than 60 percent would like to be able to push a button and get more information on screen about what they are watching.
• · The public perceives that business and advertisers have influence on television news. Those in higher income groups, the better educated, younger people and men feel most strongly about the importance of maintaining a clear separation between advertisers and news.