//
you're reading...
Illinois Media

Illinois Media: Chicago Sun-Times Internet Traffic Set to Overtake Chicago Tribune, New Web Site Survey Says

(Chicago, IL) – July 9, 2010. The Chicago Tribune may hold a nearly 2 to 1 lead over the Chicago Sun-Times in print circulation, but unique visitors to the Sun-Times Web site may soon outstrip those to the Tribune’s if trends continue, according to a new survey of area newspapers’ Web site traffic.

Estimated unique visitors to Chicago area newspapers Web sites from May 2009 to May 2010. The Chicago Tribune trend line is in blue; the Chicago Sun-Times, green.

The Tribune holds and incontestable lead in Monday through Friday print readers—452,145 to 268,803—but its monthly Internet traffic of unique visitors to its Web site has shrunk from an estimated 3,084,971 in May 2009 to 2,813,095 in May 2010, an 8.81% decline, according to the latest data estimates publicly available at Compete.com, a Web analytics company.

Meanwhile, monthly visitors to the Sun-Times has surged, growing from an estimated 1,950,364 in May 2009 to 2,673,095 in May 2010, a 37.06% increase.

From April 2010 to May 2010 alone, the Tribune’s unique monthly visitors declined 1.11% while Sun-Times visitors grew 11.97%, reducing the Tribune’s online edge to only an estimated 140,000 visitors in May, down from 1,134,607 a year ago, according to the latest data.

Commenting on the Sun-Times’ surge, the paper’s corporate communications chief, Tammy Chase, said:

Our sites’ traffic is benefiting from our continuing emphasis on local news and sports, news that is relevant to our readers. A good news cycle helps, too: Our excellent coverage of key stories in the city, such as the Blago trial and pre-trial coverage, as well as in the suburbs is paying off, as our numbers show increasingly that we’re the place to find the best coverage of spot news like the Darien murders in March and to find investigations like those into Dr. Eric Whitaker, one of President Obama’s friends in May.

The survey, conducted by THE iLLINOIS OBSERVER on July 8, 2010, compared the Web site traffic of top Chicago area newspaper operations, including the Daily Herald, the Southtown Star (owned by the Sun-Times), and Suburban Chicago News, which publishes newspapers such as the Joliet Herald News, Naperville Sun, Aurora Beacon News, etc.

Of the sites surveyed, with the exception of the Tribune, each news group increased monthly Internet traffic to its Web sites over the last year, with the Daily Herald witnessing the greatest increase, 41.1%. An estimated 332,128 Internet visitors headed to the Daily Herald in May 2009, and by May 2010 that number had jumped to 468,618.

Meanwhile, online traffic to Suburban Chicago News sites increased an estimated 17.78% and the Southtown Star saw a 2.86% bump from May 2009 to May 2010.

As long as the Tribune holds its print reader lead and the lucrative advertising advantage that comes with it, the paper will retain significant advantages over the Sun-Times.

However, if the Sun-Times manages to surpass the Tribune on Internet traffic—the readers of the future–the print underdog may gain more than bragging rights—it may secure its financial future if the paper’s new publisher, John Barron, can learn how to monetize its growing online strength.

We’ll see.

About David Ormsby

David, a public relations consultant and blogger at The Huffington Post, is an ex-Press Secretary of the Illinois Democratic Party.

Discussion

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Submit your email address and be among the first to receive our posts by e-mail as soon as they are published. It's free.

David Ormsby, Editor

RSS Gov. Pat Quinn

  • McHenry County Blog | Pat Quinn Tells Truth about Pension ... Cal Skinner
  • Illinois General Assembly, Gov. Pat Quinn Must Reconcile ... Marge Berglind
  • Pat Quinn Criticizes Scott Walker On Jobs The Huffington Post News Editors
  • Will Governor Pat Quinn Sign Illinois Budget on Thursday? « Child ... Marge Berglind
  • Quinn: Lawmakers Must 'Show Some Fortitude' On Pension ... Todd Feurer
  • Governor Pat Quinn Puts His Foot Down On Gambling Expansion ... Mark
  • Senate narrowly backs Quinn on facility closures - Capitol Fax.com Rich Miller
  • Democurmudgeon: Gov. Pat Quinn exposes Scott Walker as a fake ... Democurmudgeon
  • Advocates Seek Illinois Child Welfare Vision from Governor Pat Quinn Marge Berglind
  • Chicago News Bench: No, Really, Pat Quinn Still Sucks More Than ... TM-1000

RSS IL General Assembly

  • General Assembly puts health exchange bill on back burner - Crain's Chicago Business May 10, 2012
  • IL educators react to proposed state budget cuts - WREX-TV May 11, 2012
  • Violence Against Women Act Survives Partisan Fight, Quinn Told Not To Close ... - Patch.com May 9, 2012
  • American Progressive Bag Alliance Urges Illinois General Assembly To Pass ... - MarketWatch (press release) May 1, 2012
  • You Paid For It: IL General Assembly Scholarship Program - FOX2now.com May 7, 2012
  • Our Opinion: Anti-bully bill should get OK - The State Journal-Register May 10, 2012
  • American Progressive Bag Alliance Urges Illinois General Assembly To Pass ... - PR Newswire (press release) May 1, 2012
  • Illinois State University considers 4.4 percent tuition increase - Herald & Review May 10, 2012
  • Asian-Americans to have state caucus - WBEZ May 8, 2012
  • Suburban mayors also urge state to pass pension reform - Chicago Sun-Times May 10, 2012

RSS The Capitol Fax Blog

  • Question of the day May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Political cover or political payback? May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Illinois Needs Private Sector Jobs Now! Why Labor Leaders Support Senate Bill 1849 May 10, 2012 Advertising Department
  • Senate narrowly backs Quinn on facility closures - Chamber backs Quinn pension reforms May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • House approves bill to effectively end free employee health insurance premiums May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • *** UPDATED x2 - VIDEO *** Smith hearing resumes today (LIVE Coverage and Video) May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • *** UPDATED x2 *** Not a big deal at all, but it’s probably time to delegate a bit more May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Morning Shorts May 10, 2012 Owen Irwin
  • *** LIVE SESSION COVERAGE *** May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
  • Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - COWL review, supplement to today’s edition and a Statehouse roundup May 10, 2012 Rich Miller
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 135 other followers

Powered by WordPress.com