Friday, May 25, 2012 | Edited by Daniel Moores

Newspaper Websites Continue to Dominate Local Web On April 10, The Media Audit released its annual ranking of top local media websites. Inadvertently, Flint-Saginaw MI was omitted from the ranking. The following is an update of that press release with Flint-Saginaw included. Please note, as the Flint-Saginaw newspapers websites are tied into a website, MLive.com, which has a strong penetration in each market, ranking is affected. Newspapers continue to be the dominant player in local market media websites as they take 16 of the top 25 spots. These findings come from The Media Audit's annual local multi-media report. The report, which was released by The Media Audit at the Newspaper Association of America's annual media Xchange conference, covers the 2011 surveys. Television websites, which are becoming stronger competitors with newspaper sites, took 3 of the top 5 spots and 5 of the top 10. The top TV spot for the second year in a row goes to KSL-TV in Salt Lake City and which is owned by the Mormon Church. Two thirds of Salt Lake City adults visit KSL-TV.com at least once over a 30 day period. WRAL-TV, in Raleigh NC is a perennial leader in websites comes in number 2. Advance Publications' AnnArbor.com is the top newspaper website. In 2009, the newspaper cut back its hardcopy distribution and made a major investment in its digital efforts. Hearst Newspapers' sister company Hearst TV had the number 4 spot with its Southern New Hampshire TV station's website, WMUR.com. The fifth spot belongs to Gatehouse Newspapers' Springfield, IL Register. Advance Publications' Advance Digital group comes in with the 7th an 9th ranked local sites, Syracuse Post-Standard's syracuse.com (50% adult reach) and Springfield, MA Republican's MassLive.com (48.2% reach). With 3 of the top 10 local media, Advance is the strongest of any TV or newspaper group in giving Advance 3 of the top 10. Gannett makes it into the top 10 with the Tallahassee Democrat's Tallahassee.com (49.2% adult reach). Waterman Broadcasting's Charlottesville station WVIR-TV rounds out the top 10 television stations with a 46.9% reach of adults. For the nation's largest population centers, the strongest performer is the Washington Post's WashingtonPost.com, which reaches 46% of all Washington adults, making it number 11 in The Media Audit's top local media websites. Commenting on the newspaper findings, The Media Audit president Bob Jordan noted "when you look at the newspapers with the strongest websites, you'll notice these newspapers also have strong print penetration (60 to 70%) in their markets. This indicates strong relevance of the newspaper and its website in the community. Newspapers are still the largest news gathering organization in any community and this positions the newspapers and their websites for what the community wants." Further, Jordan noted "It's interesting to see that the top newspaper websites are associated with strong reach newspapers, have 30 day readership that is 75% of the respective newspaper. As you move down the rank order, the websites have a reach at about 60% of the newspaper." The Media Audit is a syndicated multi-media and retail study conducted in 100+ US markets. (Source: The Media Audit, 05/16/12)