In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, traffic to U.S. news sites has been staggering. In the month of March, the TownNews network—made up of more than 2,000 newspaper, TV, radio, and web-native news organizations—delivered more than one billion pageviews, a 51% increase over the prior 31-day period. During the same period, overall user sessions were up 59%, to more than 606 million, while first-time visitors rose 55%.
Newspaper and broadcast journalists are proving once again how essential they are to our society.
Those figures only include traffic from actual human site visitors. When all traffic, including search engine crawlers, news feed requests, web bots, etc., is accounted for, the TownNews network served an astonishing 4.6 billion pageviews in March, a new record for the company.
According to Chris Murley, director of product and infrastructure, TownNews understands the importance of making sure its customers' sites are available, regardless of global events.
"Since the coronavirus hit, we've seen, on average, a 100% increase daily in concurrent user connections, but our platform is built with scalability in mind," Murley said. "We know that major news events will happen, and when they do, nothing is more important than delivering on that promise so our local media partners can succeed.
"We also saw traffic from Facebook's news feed skyrocket to record highs, at one point reaching tens of thousands of requests per minute. I think that's a direct side effect of the U.S. workforce working from home."
In response to the pandemic, TownNews has fast-tracked a number of initiatives to help its customers generate revenue as locally-sold advertising income fades, including:
A new "Support Local Journalism" feature that allows site visitors to make direct monetary contributions to their local news organizations. In just a few days, 185 media organizations have signed up for the service, and tens of thousands of dollars have been contributed by site visitors.
A series of turnkey business directory products, including a virtual career fair, a takeout restaurant directory, and a listing of local businesses that are still open during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since announcing the service on March 16th, 20 customers have launched new directories, with 17 more set to launch soon.
A webinar highlighting ways that local media organizations can generate revenue and grow their audiences during the coronavirus pandemic. Topics covered included paywall best practices, capitalizing on traffic spikes with programmatic advertising, and quickly building special sections for breaking news. The webinar was attended by more than 220 TownNews customers.
In an effort to address news deserts, TownNews will soon be announcing a new platform that will allow local organizations to offer news and information to communities in under-served media markets. This platform will become even more vital in light of the recent strains put on media outlets by the coronavirus pandemic.
At this special webinar, the TownNews team shared ideas and best practices for serving your audience and generating revenue during the coronav…
All of the new initiatives, especially the Support Local Journalism package, have been well-received by TownNews' customers.
"Thanks to TownNews, we were able to quickly activate and market a premium subscription option and a voluntary contribution option," said Steve Stewart, vice president at Boone Newspapers. "Revenue is already flowing via both options and will be critical going forward as we continue to keep our community informed."
"The donation program has exceeded my expectations. We started receiving donations almost as soon as TownNews notified me that the program had been set up," said Jesús Sanchez, Publisher of The Eastsider, an independent neighborhood news blog based in L.A. "We received about $1,000 in the first two days, which is a lot for us and comes as our banner ad and sponsored post sales have come to a virtual standstill."
Brad Ward, CEO of TownNews, says that the company fills a vital role in the local media space.
"It's critical that we enable our customers to survive this downturn, thrive on the other side, and continue doing the crucial work of safeguarding our democracy," Ward said. "Newspapers and broadcasters are both facing massive advertising losses, especially from local small businesses. It's really like nothing we've ever seen.
"I'm very appreciative of the way our team has stepped up to help our customers, and the journalism industry as a whole, weather this crisis."
