MassLive has spun a small-market newspaper into a web traffic powerhouse

"A few weeks back, we released our first monthly traffic rankings for U.S. local newspapers, and the big takeaway was the dominance of Advance Local, the chain that owns the dailies in Cleveland, Harrisburg, Newark, Syracuse, Birmingham, and a variety of other mostly unsexy American cities. In June's data, Advance papers took 7 of the top 11 spots, beating out their peers in much larger markets."

"But it turns out I wasn't giving them enough credit. You see, these rankings are based on traffic data for a list of about 250 papers, including every daily newspaper published in the United States' 100 largest metropolitan areas. Since we'd only be reporting the top 25, I figured that was a safe cutoff point; after all, a market smaller than Toledo, Chattanooga, or Spokane wasn't going to drive more web traffic than a place like Houston, Atlanta, or Denver, right?"

"Springfield, Massachusetts, is a city of 155,929 people, anchoring the 117th-largest metro area in the United States. It is neither the country's largest Springfield, its most famous Springfield, or its most recently newsworthy Springfield. And yet the Advance-owned newspaper there, The Republican, somehow gets more web traffic than the New York Daily News, The Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, the Charlotte Observer, and a long list of other papers with NFL teams to cover."

Advance Local dominates U.S. local newspaper web traffic, taking seven of the top eleven spots in June data. The chain owns dailies across many mid-sized American cities and leverages strategies like statewide websites, early digital investment, rapid retreat from print, national aggregation, pop-culture coverage, and high story counts. Rankings used traffic for about 250 papers covering the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, and initial cutoffs excluded smaller markets under the assumption they would not outpace major metros. Springfield, Massachusetts (population 155,929), anchors the 117th-largest metro but its Advance-owned site MassLive.com outperforms major papers from larger markets.

Read at Nieman Lab