In my endless quest to find you, my readers, the most relevant information on domain names and the media industry, we hopped a flight from LA after the DomainFest show, and went to Hawaii for a few days.
Did you know that the largest newspaper in terms of circulation in the state of Hawaii is called the The Honolulu Advertiser?
I thought what a great name for a newspaper. I mean here is a something actually calling itself what it is.
This made me think, is a typical daily newspaper just really a giant landing page with content?
The newspaper certainly gives you news, opinions and features like TV listings and horoscopes but it’s in the business of selling ads.
There are ads everywhere on almost every page.
Now here is the interesting part.
The daily circulation of The Honolulu Advertiser is 141,000 daily and 156,000 on Sunday.
Gannett a giant publish of newspapers, including USA TODAY, paid 250 Million dollars to purchase the newspaper back in 1992.
Let’s see 250 Million dollars for 145,000 eyeballs a day.
Wait a minute, the domains we own, generate substantially more eyeballs than this newspaper every day.
What is the daily circulation for the domains Frank owns?
What does the future hold for both forms of media?
We know this. Newspaper reader will continue to shrink. Internet usage will continue to grow.
So how a far a jump would it be before media giants start paying similar amounts for our eyeballs.
And your’s
The problem is your eyesballs are not all Honolulu eyesballs. In otherwords your audience is not geolocalized, like your audeince is horizontal and not vertical.
When audience is vertical and/or geolocalized and the amount of traffic very significant is when such media magnat are willing to pay fortunes.
francois is right on…if a newspaper were a domain it would be a g e o and some would be the equivalent of a large city.com. Still though if that paper sold for 250mm then newyork.com is easy worth the same
Gentlemen
Some advertisers are looking for Honolulu eyeballs, local businesses, restaurants, tours.
But most of the bigger ads, quarter pages and up, are national in nature and run in newspapers all over the country.
Ads for new cars paid for by Ford or GM.
Ads for drinks like Coke and Pepsi
Ads for cell services like Verizon and Sprint.
The list goes on and on.
These advertisers are just looking for eyeballs and advertise everywhere.
Tim’s point is well taken.
If advertisers are trying to reach a particular city, or country, then how could I have bought Holland.net the other day, which has a population of 6.1 million people, for less than it cost to run a full page ad in many of the big city newspaper.
I mean if you as an advertiser ran weekly ads in the New York Times or New York post, spending millions and millions of dollars to do so, Why not buy newyork.net for $325K at the auciton??
I generally agree with the statements in the post. I’d like to add an important sidenote though.
We know the typical reasons why old media is starting to flatline: online is easier, cheaper, and the media doesn’t have a partial monopoly on the circulation (or frequency as it is in terrestrial radio).
However what’s also a big problem for them is that eyeballs are simply not enough – they need to be engaged. Ad dollars are not just going online, they are increasingly competing for the most STICKY type of exposure.
A newspaper is as un-sticky as you can get. Moving news online is stickier, but ultimately in years to come will also have a problem competing with yet other types of media. The top dollars will bubble to the top, where in years we’ll see publishers struggle even online unless they find ENGAGING methods of monetezation. Otherwise there will be too much competition.
Just my 2 cents on the topic.
Ari
I yes the more engaged the eyeballs are the more valuable they are. But newspapers have been around for 100 years. The best days maybe behind them but they will still be around in another 100 years, just not as profitable.
So I think we can agree that eyeballs, where ever they come from will always have value.
I still feel that online eyeballs are way undervalued compared to traditional media