Total Revenues Up 8 percent; Personals Revenues Up 16 percent; Adult Revenues Down 5 percent
Fifteen alternative newsweeklies have been using the SelectAlternatives personals/social networking software since January of 2007. All fifteen papers utilize the SelectAlternatives software for their regular personals sites. Thirteen of the fifteen papers also have adult sites.
The revenue tracked in the study comes from readers purchasing memberships on both the Personals and Adult sites and revenues from readers using the telephone to respond to printed Personals and Adult ads.
For the periods of January-October 2008 versus January-October 2007, the study found:
Total gross revenues from both Personals and Adult sites from member purchases made both online and via telephone increased 8 percent, from $381,043 to $411,634.
Online revenues from Personals sites increased 19 percent, while Personals telephone purchases (readers calling to respond to printed personals) declined 35 percent.
Online revenues from Adult sites declined 1 percent, while Adult telephone revenues declined 19 percent.
Overall, online revenues (Personals and Adult) increased 12 percent while telephone revenues (Personals and Adult) declined 25 percent.
As a percentage of total revenues, Personals increased from 63 percent in 2007 to 68 percent in 2008.
Purchases made online rather than via the telephone increased from 88 percent in 2007 to 92 percent in 2008.
The decrease in telephone revenues can be attributed to two factors: increasing comfort with online commerce combined with less print space being devoted to printed personal ads.
The number of new member registrations across the fifteen papers (sign-ups) increased 12 percent.
Web traffic also saw significant increases. Total page views increased 12 percent from 54.2 million in 2007 to 60.7 million this year.
The fifteen alternative newsweeklies in the study are: Nuvo; Salt Lake City Weekly; Atlanta, Charlotte and Tampa Creative Loafing; Charlottesville Hook; Sacramento, Chico and Reno News & Review; Washington City Paper; Austin Chronicle; Portland Mercury; Seven Days; Chicago Reader and The Stranger.
For more information about SelectAlternatives, please contact Andy Sutcliffe.
andy (at) sutcliffeassociates.com
520-631-6586
