Mid-Size, Small TV Stations Outperform Newspaper Websites

Mid-sized and small market TV stations and related websites have higher news consumption than newspapers or other media-rated sites, with bigger markets seeing newspapers on top, according to a new study.

Among 37 medium-sized and smaller markets -- representing a market size of 25 to 205 -- television websites were first, according to research from the Knight Foundation.

According to MediaPost, the breakdown of daily site visitors by medium is: TV, 52%; newspapers, 38%; pure-play local online, 3%; public radio/TV, 2%; and commercial radio 1%.

In 22 bigger TV station markets, market size one through 24 -- which included Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta, and Philadelphia -- newspaper websites came out on top.

The breakdown of daily site visitors by medium is: newspapers, 54%; TV, 41%; public radio/TV, 1%; commercial radio, 0.4%; and  pure-play local online, 1%.

Knight says it did not include New York and Washington, D.C. in these results because together, those markets have three major national newspapers that would have altered results.