What is reach and how is it calculated for different media sources?
Online
The article reach is the number of unique visitors who opened a section while it contained a link to the article.
For example, if an article is visible at the front page and only there for a day, the readership is the number of unique visitors opening the front page during that day.
We believe that this model mirrors reality better than any other method because of the following properties:
- Articles visible for a long time get higher readership than those disappearing fast, so it mirrors most publishers’ policy
- An article visible on the front page for a day will get higher readership than an article visible on the Politics section or in the archive section for a day
- Articles with images on the section pages get higher readership than those without
- Article readership is always lower than monthly unique visitors and approaches that number if it’s prominent on the site for several days
- It takes into account the fact that people frequently notice the main message of an article without clicking on it.
The definition is slightly related to the Google Pagerank idea, where the front and section pages take the role of sites: if important sections link to an article for a long time, it will be observed by more people, so it should be ranked higher.
Press and broadcast:
Press and broadcast reach data is being compiled from a combination of publicly available data via desktop research and work with publishers to establish the latest figure.
With the declining popularity of press, Ruepoint’s research has shown that currently, print outlets have circulation or reach of between 25-30% of the respective media outlet’s online reach where applicable. Ruepoint will continue to source the print reach data the traditional way.
Broadcast viewership and listenership data will be updated every quarter.
Both Print and Broadcast Reach metrics or figures are attributed to the source.