{"id":3350,"date":"2005-11-09T13:17:11","date_gmt":"2005-11-09T19:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2005\/11\/09\/analyzing-gazette-readership\/"},"modified":"2024-09-19T15:11:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T20:11:57","slug":"analyzing-gazette-readership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2005\/11\/09\/analyzing-gazette-readership\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyzing Gazette Readership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I noticed an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago chronicling the continuing decline in newspaper circulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newspaper industry’s twice-yearly report showed weekday circulation at the more than 700 newspapers with audited data was down 2.6% compared with the same period a year ago. The report, issued by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, follows a 1.9% decline during the previous reporting period ended March 30. The circulation figures, which are used to set advertising rates, are scrutinized by advertisers and Wall Street.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I’m always loathe to compare blogs to the MSM<\/acronym>, but I do think it’s wise to stay on top of trends like this and understand the implications. Therefore, I’ve spent a lot of time recently getting a handle on the preferences of the Gazette’s readership to ensure that it doesn’t suffer the same embarrassing fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second most frequent question* I get is along the lines of “how do A-list bloggers figure out what to write about?” Of course, I don’t even know<\/em> any A-listers, much less know how they decide what to write; I just figure they have staffs to do that for them, while they’re taking power lunches. But I do know what my readership responds to, and the following chart is amazingly illuminating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Graph\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This graph tracks average daily readership over a typical month. You’ll notice that it remains fairly constant, but three spikes are obvious. A careful analysis reveals that these spikes are related to specific post content, to wit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. A post about politics<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. A post about baby squirrels<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. A post about the politics of baby squirrels<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Pretty telling, huh? In the case of #1, the negative readership numbers seems to indicate that not only did people stop reading the Gazette, but they shut down their computers and sat on the back porch, moping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I believe the lessons of this graph are clear, and I’ll try to keep them in mind for future posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    By the way, this graph also illustrates another significant — albeit unrelated — point: the accuracy of the data on which a graph is based is indirectly proportional to the number of colors, drop-shadows, 3-D and bevel effects used therein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    *The most frequently asked question is “are you still on your meds?” As if that<\/em> would make any difference.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I know what my readers like and don’t like, and I have the graph to prove it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-plain-silly","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3350"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14257,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions\/14257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}