What exactly is local or national news anyway?

May 14, 2009 by Dirk Singer

When putting together our recent future of print media report I was struck by the huge audiences UK national newspapers were bringing in from abroad via their web offerings.

For example the ABCe ‘multi platform’ report for March, had the Guardian at 26.2 million unique users of which 15.5 million – or 59% originated from outside the UK.

Comscore has just released data, which shows a similar trend.

Comscore measures unique visitors rather than unique users, which brings the Guardian’s total to a more manageable – but still impressive – figure of 9.9 million.

But the conclusion is the same, Comscore says 57% of the newspaper’s audience comes from outside the UK, and figures for the other UK nationals (see table) tell a similar story.

Which begs the question: UK nationals do a good job in (as I understand it) attracting US visitors in particular. Meanwhile I live in London and often read the New York Times via my iPhone.

As a result, when it comes to targeting consumers, to what extent can you really talk about national or regional media?

Isn’t all media international and wouldn’t some of your media dollars, pounds and euros be spent hitting outlets which might be published half way around the world, but still resonate close to home?

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