These are tough times for not only the media (and those employed by it) in Scotland, but also those looking for information on how well the industry is doing, but one journalist may just have a shone a light on a piece of information that is useful for media, communicators, bloggers, social media influencers, advertisers and others.
Brian Ferguson is one of Scotland’s most senior and dedicated journalists – he’s passionate about the areas he covers (arts, culture and tourism) and he’s put in the hours to build contacts.
In an age when arts and tourism reporting has been under threat – like many specialists – he has been a beacon for how to do it and fair play to The Scotsman for recognising for how important it is. Given the millions of people who come to Edinburgh for the festivals (and the money it generates) it’s a big thing in the city and for the media there.
So, some eyebrows were raised on Thursday night when he tweeted the following:
And followed it up with:
Now, as Brian points out, he’s been kept busy – and managed to find the tales (as you would expect from a good journalist) – despite Edinburgh’s famous festivals being cancelled this year. But what else can we learn from this?
The key stat to being a mainstream media success in Scotland in 2020
Brian posts that he has an audience of 258,000 and 247,000 respectively for August 2019 and June 2020. Now ‘audience’ could mean ‘views’ or ‘unique viewers’, I’ll leave it to you to pick what one suits you.
Thanks to Roxhill’s media suite we can see that Brian posted approx 41 large stories in each of these time periods (far better than the paltry once a year on this site of late) and that’s not a bad text-based output.
But if we do the math, that makes Brian’s audience to be approx 6293 and 6025 in the month’s mentioned.
What we can learn or assume from a journalist’s audience numbers
A couple of things spring to mind.
- August is festival month in Edinburgh, it’s fair to assume that’s peak audience
- Brian has a solid audience of approximately 6000 people. That may not seem high (I’ll leave that for you to decide) but if it’s the right 6000 people – culture ministers and so on – then it’s impactful
Now, as Brian is one of Scotland’s better-known journalists, it’s fair to assume that his stats are better than most. Also, bear in mind that this is for an individual and not a judgement or stat like Chartbeat measurement on The Scotsman.
So, you want to be an influence in mainstream Scottish journalism? Have a solid audience of around 6000. Now bear in mind that’s reading your work. You can’t assume Twitter numbers are similar as most tweets are ineffective after 20 or so minutes (and are only seen by a fraction of followers anyway).
For PRs and engagement specialists it also means you have a number to look at and consider if you should spend time engaging with Brian or another arts/culture correspondent – and you can go and ask them for stats so you can compare them to Brian.
How have the numbers changed for the media in Scotland?
It also shows what the growth rate is – to an extent – in Scottish online media. Based on my research and recollection, the following numbers hold true:
- 20 years ago, an average performing story would pull in 3,000 views (on the few Scottish news sites that were doing online back in 2000)
- 10 years ago, 4,500 was nearer the norm for an average to well-performing story
Now, both of these stats pre-date the huge shift to mobile and the rise of iPhones and Androids as media consumption devices so keep that in mind. Also, bear in mind that Brian has a specific beat. Stats for sport reporters, politics reporters and the likes of Holyrood Magazine may be quite different. (By comparison, the superb Thumbcast podcast that I used to do with Iain Hepburn for fun pulled in low thousands to a peak of around 6000 in 2009-2011.)
What this tells us for bloggers, PR, communications and influencers
Brian’s stats aren’t just useful for journalism though. They’re also handy for others. For example, Whyte & Mackay’s blog for their Master Blender Richard Paterson used to, if I recall correctly, pull in around 10,000 views (not uniques) per post and his video work did far more back in 2010.
Brian’s stats now allow people – and brands – to benchmark their efforts against one of the country’s top media operators. That’s incredibly useful and handy. Online news sites (like Deadline News, The Edinburgh Reporter or Digit), social media influencers, bloggers – now you have a benchmark of sorts (though mixing up social media stats with website stats isn’t advised).
What does it tell us about financials?
There’s another aspect to this. Journalists are notorious for not putting financial information against their work. The running joke used to be that the only numbers a journalist cared for was their expenses.
In the modern era, that’s a luxury that can no longer be afforded though a journalist should never be benchmarked purely against views or the revenue their stories can bring in because news is often a tricky proposition to place revenue against (and besides, journalists aren’t ad sales people).
Can we work out how much money a journalist makes for a media publication in Scotland?
But what can we work out as a rough potential figure? CPM, as most readers here will know, is a key metric for advertising (even on trucks). It’s the cost per thousand views. This site has targeted CPM reaching up to $65 while The Guardian has a CPM of £65 for culture.
So, just using that as a rough guide, in the two months mentioned Brian could have earned the paper around £400 per advert per story (6000 x £65).
Looking at the average Scotsman page online, there’s four ad slots, so that’s £1600 per story. Multiplying that by 40 (Brian’s number of stories) gives you a number of £64,000 per month – if you charge Guardian rates and each slot is charged standalone.
(Equally, if the CPM is £1 and depending on the way the company charges, it could be a lot less. It could also be true that Brian’s stories are bringing in about £40 a month in total.)
What use is this to a journalist or influencer?
Now, that suddenly has a lot of use to a journalist in these cash-strapped times because if they take an interest in their numbers they can see not only what brings in the revenue (and balance out the type of stories they need to write) but they can also show editors and employers the value they bring to the table.
Why journalists shouldn’t worry about low numbers
Now, not every journalist can pull in Brian’s numbers, but even low numbers aren’t a reason to panic. As I say to businesses and individuals, it’s not until you measure stuff that you can benchmark. Even if you’re starting number is one or zero, it’s a reference point and you can work on improving it. (That’s a post for another day.)
In summary
With a couple of simple tweets, not only has Brian given us useful insight into his core audience but also provided stats and material that could highlight potential earnings and given communicators a benchmark for when they speak to media and other influencers. As I said at the start, in a data-driven age, that’s invaluable.