That’s because they go into offices and dump six copies in each one. The fact no one reads them is irrelevant. As far as they are concerned, they have been circulated! They used to leave 20 copies in a building I used to work in, and we would throw them in the recycling immediately. No one wanted them, because of their “crapness”.

I frankly know of no-one that reads the rag, I mean advertising, I mean ….

City News are about as helpful as a spotlights on a blinds mans dog.

Perhaps RiotACT should release its visitor numbers and compare that to the circulation numbers…the main difference is people who visit RiotACT probably read bits of it.

or they are looking for naked horses…

Sam, the referrers reports that cause so much hilarity each month are produced after 20,000 page views since the start of the month.

Note this does not mean 20,000 unique visitors, but rather how many times the articles have been looked at (including, I think, multiple viewings of the same article by the same reader). However it does give some indication of the readership, particularly when the 20,000 page views are passed generally within about a week.

JB does also get reports on the number of unique viewers per month, but I guess it’s up to him to reveal those figures or not.

And also remember the RiotACT is not (yet) a mainstream news source in Canberra, unlike the Canberra Times and unlike what CityNews likes to think of themselves as.

(And I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’ve got any of this wrong)

LG: I was going to say something of the same extent…how do they measure circulation, by how much they ‘dump’ at each location?

citynews is shite! i only read it when im the first at the pub and im waiting for other people.

id seriously question the way they measure readership and their definition of circulation.

i wonder what the ad rates card says ?

Bonfire, may I direct you attention here and here (the ones on their website are correct if they’ve updated the site since July 05).

Please don’t knock the city news it’s advertorials are informative and well paid for

I think their “Circulation” is entirely based on how many they can print.

When you get paid on the basis of how many you print that becomes a question of “How many can we jam in any place that doesn’t complain”.

Anyway from 1-10 October we had 4,901 visitors of which 1,847 came in on search queries. (although nearly 300 of that number were searching for RiotACT directly)

So well upwards of 3,000 motivated readers.

If people had to go and get CityNews I question if they would reach that number.

Kerces, assuming that most months the 20000 page views is reached in 7 days, and assuming that in those seven days the average viewer has 10 page views (yes, I am making this up on the spot…probably the same as CityNews stats), that creates 285 visitors per day. If I assume that the visitor rate is consistent throughout the month, but half of the visitors each day have previously visited RiotACT that month, then we have 285 visitors on the first day and another 142 or so each day thereafter. Therefore in a 31 day month RiotACT would have approx 4545 unique visiotrs per month.

That’s not a huge number, but considering that RiotACT is squarely Canberra oriented, and there are 350,000 or so people in Canberra (from memory) you are reaching 1.3% of the population, which isn’t bad for an online publication run by volunteers, and frequented by opinionated persons like myself.

Of course, I could just be babbling again.

Dagnammit, JB beat me to it, but it looks like my babbling wasn’t far off…

not a bad estimate SGS. if we thought that we’d ever get to those numbers or even had a formula for calculating it when we JB, myself, NTP and kramer started this thing almost 5 years ago we would have been pretty excited. Its soo much better now that those 4500 visits aren’t made by the 4 of us.

I also use webstat on my website, but I don’t come anywhere near 20,000 page views per month, I average about 1,300 from 348 visitors. Unfortunately a lot of my visitors seem to come from virtually unrelated Google searches, and me, and a couple regular visitors. But my website mainly consists of my babblings about everything and nothing, so I’m not complaining.

I guess the important thing is that the RiotACT team have grown a successful website containing a lot of news and opinions on Canberra issues by Canberra people, which is something that I haven’t seen done elsewhere. (CT Have Your Say doesn’t count…people can’t submit articles there.)

Jazz don’t forget Che and two who are no longer with us (not dead just not interested). I’m just glad the readership is now bringing the news to us. Always the idea and far more interesting the the stuff I dragged together.

hate to break the news to the old style actual paper media barons, their star is fading fast, even fairfax circulation is dropping. Welcome to the website, blog and podcast democratisation of news. Didn’t Rupert M decide to put US$3 Billion into his internet business so he can keep making money.

Sounds to me like the City News is trying to win the battle of last loser standing but they haven’t worked that out yet. Better not tell them, it will be funnier that way.

your numbers are a bit out sam, on a busy day we bump around 700 visitors a day. (and 3,000 page views)

Yeah, OK, fair enough…I was bored…still, you get far more visitors than I do (and deservedly so)

Oi, just because I wasn’t in Canberra when we started doesn’t mean I wasn’t in at the ground floor Jazz

I was there at the angle grinder and curry party

next thing you know you’ll be leaving me off your Christmas card list

bugger, sorry che. i thought that didn’t look right when i wrote it but couldn’t work out where

christmas cards? i don’t think i’ve ever sent any of those so i wouldn’t feel left out if i were you

So when is RiotACT’s 5th birthday, and how to celebrate? (Apart from burning down the CN office).

Pitchforks with the words ‘Riot ACT’ printed on them strategically placed along Northbourne Avenue one morning ?

Terubo, I just had a look and this is the earliest story I can find on the old site (i’m glad to see the quality of writing had improved no end guys — seriously). So I guess that would make RA’s birthday on November 28 which is unfortunately a Monday this year.

Kerces, was that 2000?

I presume so; those old site dates frequently frustrate me too but I have been told this year is indeed the site’s fifth anniversary.

I guess Jazz, JB, NTP, Kramer and Che would know, to judge from the above.
Anyone else claim responsibility?

so you must be volunteering to plan the big celebration huh terubo, seeing as you brought it up?

I wouldn’t be so bold…but anything for a party. The originators of this august organ should determine when & where…
How about a RiotACT Awards night?
-Best writing, best rant, most obscure photo, best contribution from a local pollie, best poem, most besieged personality, best Patrick Carr, etc etc.