In one segment of the survey, I asked readers what other websites they visited. Interestingly enough, the Los Angeles Times was the top website, followed by IMDB, the New York Times, Wikipedia (ahem), L.A. Observed, Curbed L.A., the Daily Beast, L.A. Weekly, L.A. Morgue Files, She Blogged by Night, LAist, Franklin Avenue, Dodger Thoughts, Nitrateville, Self-Styled Siren and the Fedora Lounge.
I neglected to ask about the SkyscraperCity blog, which sends some traffic my way.
One of the most significant (and gratifying) findings is this one:
The vast majority of the audience is longtime readers, more than three years, back to when the Daily Mirror was at latimes.com. This is good, but notice how few new readers are being added: just 13 readers in the last year (I see that I could have worded that question more clearly).
These results reflect the long-term nature of the readers.
Most visit every day….
And they stay on the blog for a long while, according to the survey. When I was doing the Daily Mirror at latimes.com, the average visit for the blog was six minutes. In case you don’t know, that is an eternity on the Web.
If I were in business and the Daily Mirror were a regular newspaper, these results would be cause for concern: I have a large bloc of longtime, loyal readers, which is great. But I’m not adding anyone. And of course, that’s the problem not just of newspapers, but symphony orchestras and opera companies and any other nonprofit with a graying audience.
This is a pet project and I don’t need to run membership drives or make cold calls. But it would be nice to attract some newer readers.
To be continued.
ladailymirror.com 
I do what I can, posting my blog post to various FB pages. I was hoping that might attract some readers, particularly from the history groups.
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Yes, and it’s much appreciated!!
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The part of the Skyscraper site is the L.A. Noir part, especially if you like old L.A.. There is close to 1000 pages now. http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=964538
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Somehow I missed the survey (December was a hectic month.) I rarely visit your web site directly unless I want to post a comment, or look up a post from the past, but I read the new entries every day. I created a LiveJournal feed for it last October 13, so LJ fetches the current entries to post on my friends page and I don’t have to open a separate RSS reader. So far I’m the only subscriber to the feed, but then LiveJournal itself is fairly dead these days (except in Russia.) My handful of readers are scattered all over and probably wouldn’t have any special interest in Los Angeles, but maybe I could write an entry mentioning the old radio show links you’ve been posting. That might attract the interest of a few of them.
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Thanks for reading!
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I enjoy demography & market research, in general, so I appreciate your willingness to pull back the curtain, & give us a peek. With a late father-in-law in advertising, & a mother in publishing, these are familiar dinner musings. I’m not surprised to find myself in the minority, age-wise (43), location-wise (East Coast, South), & other-wise. Hubs (even younger) & I have both been “old souls” all our lives, watching “Matinee At The Bijou” while our peers played Atari games. I find myself wanting to apologize/explain the Wikipedia use. When hubs taught college English, he would not allow it as a source. I think it is absolutely correct to continue this constraint, as well as it as solo source for journalists, as well. However, in the absence of more credible info, in a pinch, I find it helpful, if the entry is properly sourced & foot-noted, which, granted, varies wildly. It can often point me to an article or book that provides me w/ a solid resource, when the link is followed, which is a time-saver, research-wise. Anytime I share Wiki data, even in casual convo, I also identify it’s somewhat dubious source, as a caveat. I also take the time to correct & source properly anything I note as incorrect, b/c I know that many my college daughter’s age take Wikipedia as gospel, despite parental & academic advice to the contrary. So, I hope you’ll forgive my occasional use of Wikipedia, as a source for clues, but never a bedrock for unquestioned fact. As we were warned as far back as h.s. Journalism class, it is paramount to always “consider the source”, in weighing veracity of any claim. I consider Wikipedia an exercise in this maxim. Thanks for an enlightening, entertaining, & always trustworthy blog. I enjoy it a great deal, as does my spouse, to whom I often forward entries.
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Thanks for reading. Wikipedia does have its uses. It’s very strong on pop culture (such as the long biography of Eric Cartman). Some subjects have serious challenges and the impermanent nature of the entries is awfully troublesome.
Again, thanks for reading!
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