According to a new study, most mainstream news outlets are well aware of the importance of running a maintaining a strong political presence. And if the proof is in the pudding, then the rapid growth of pure-play political blogs provides plenty of evidence. Blogging in general is up 4% in terms of unique viewers, comparing September 2008 to the same month last year. But the comps for political blogs are often in the high double digits, triple digits, even quadruple digits in one case. Leading the way is the Huffington Post, which gained 474% to 4.5M unique viewers. Another relative newcomer, Politico, was up 344% to 2.4M. One of the granddaddies of them all, The Drudge Report, managed a 70% increase to 2.1M. One other, Realclearpolitics.com, was in the millions, with 1.1M viewers, 489% above the previous September. Talkingpointsmemo.com moved the most, however, going from 32K to 458K unique viewers, a gain of 1321%.
RBR/TVBR observation: Hits at these and similar blogs figure to diminish starting on 11/5/08. But on the other hand, many of them have become part of peoples’ daily routine. And that is the challenge for a broadcaster’s website – make it of compelling interest to your target audience so they visit it not just daily, but several times during the day.
