Best and worst cities for newspapers

But Jay, you could do the same about TV ratings. The Jets draw shit as a percentage. But they probably have more viewers than the Chiefs.

In terms of local impact, there's no question the Chiefs are 50x bigger in KC than the Jets are in NY.

 

Exactly.

That's why rankings like the one AdAge did are worthless.

For example, the second best market for college football is New York. More people will watch college football on a Saturday in NYC then live in Mississippi or Arkansas or Tennessee or Alabama yet no one ever calls New York a college football town.

Numbers without perspective can be spun anyway you like for them to be spun.

 

You think 6.5 million people in New York City are watching college football on a random Saturday. You're the one who needs perspective.

I suppose unemployment rate is stupid because there are more employed people and more unemployed people in the USA than the entire population of Denmark.

 

This list is simple -- the less transient your population, the more people read the local newspaper because it is the thing they have always done.

A place like Atlanta, Vegas or Houston - a lot of people have moved there that aren't from there and people who aren't native to an area are less likely to buy the local newspaper because there isn't an investment in it or the community.

 

TV market size of New York is around 20 million people and as best as I recall, NYC was the top TV market for college football.

I did some googling and a NY Times article said about 14 percent of those 20 million watch college football or around 2.9 million people or the population of Mississippi or Arkansas. I thought the percentage was in the 30s which would put it in the six million range or Tennessee or Alabama.

The larger point is that you can spin the numbers anyway you like to get the result you want.

Here's the article
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/

 

The numbers are what they are. An inability to process and contextualize them is not their fault.

 

Great points one and all.

 

Exactly.

While the PG and Trib are solid papers and each have a place in the city, the heavy readership is mostly because of this tidbit:

The oldest city in America is Pittsburgh, where 23.6% of the metro area’s population is over 60.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2012/12/14/aging-america-the-cities-that-are-going-gray-the-fastest/

 

Most of the people in the NYC TV market do not live in NYC. The market takes in the northern half of New Jersey, several counties in New York, Fairfield County in Connecticut, and Pike County in New York. Lot of college football fans once you get out of the city, but are those fans valuable to advertisers?