Pittsburgh Media Players Catch Up in Digital

In many ways Pittsburgh is a lucrative media market. With 2.8 million people, it’s the 23rd most populated market in the nation, as ranked by Nielsen. Unlike several bigger cities, it plays host to two newspapers, and the population’s rabid sports fanaticism — particularly for the Pittsburgh Steelers — drives a good deal of content.

But when it comes to digital, in some ways the citizens of Steeler Nation, and the major media outlets in town (including stations owned by Hearst, Cox and CBS), have been a bit behind the times.

“There was such an adjustment period when I first got here,” said Shaun Ganley, who came to Hearst Television-owned ABC affiliate WTAE-TV from Syracuse, N.Y., a year ago to become the station’s digital media manager. “The Pittsburgh area as a whole was not consuming as much as other markets. People have been a bit slower to adapt to technology out here.”

According to Borrell Associates, share of local advertising spending on older digital standards like email and paid search are 13.2% and 5.7% higher compared to the national average. “It could have a lot to do with the technology available,” said Larry Shaw, Borrell VP of research. “Pittsburgh tends to be a little bit more of a blue collar market.”

Meanwhile the share of spending in streaming video, one of the fastest growing digital mediums, is 2% behind the national average. (Video views for WTAE.com remained flat in 2011 compared with the year prior, Ganley said.) Ganley, Mary Leonard, deputy managing editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Steve Adams, multimedia editor for Trib Total Media, locally owned parent to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, each said their mobile capabilities were still basic. And the online spending share as a whole in Pittsburgh trails the national average by 2.8%.

But Shaw said Pittsburgh would catch up over the next five years. Local online spending — $135.2 million in 2011 — should increase by $100 million, or 74%, by 2016, according to Borrell. Spending for streaming video, today $16.9 million, will jump 126.6% to $38.4 million. Email will still increase 5.4% in that time frame, but paid search should drop 25%, to be compensated by spending in targeted display ads, expected to skyrocket from $13.9 million to $129.5 million, or 868.7%, over the next five years.

Ganley said over the past six to nine months, there’s evidence that would support Borrell’s estimates. “We’ve seen an overall growth in all different dayparts, whether it be in social media, on the main website or on mobile,” he said. And the two papers in town are making significant digital investments: the Post-Gazette for instance has just rolled out a new primary website that should leave beta this year, while the Trib Total Media has invested in a new content management system.

Video views for WTAE.com remained flat in 2011 compared with the year prior.

Being in a two-paper town ensures the respective digital teams stay on their toes, Adams said. But when it comes to size of online audience, the competition isn’t that close, according to data from online research company comScore. Post-Gazette.com has averaged approximately 1.02 million unique visitors a month for the year ending November 2011 (comScore’s latest reporting period). The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which is primarily accessed at PittsburghLive.com as well as TribLive.com (which also hosts content from other Trib Total Media outlets, including five other daily newspapers in the suburbs) combined averaged 707,000 unique visitors a month during the same time period.

Broadcast TV sites actually have a greater share of website visits in Pittsburgh — 27.5% in the past month compared with 20.9% for newspapers, according to Borrell — but the three most popular station websites each have a smaller online audience than their paper counterparts. WTAE changed its reporting methodology last February, comScore marketing manager Carmela Aquino said, so it didn’t have a full year’s worth of metrics, but from February 2011 to November 2011, WTAE.com averaged approximately 733,889 monthly unique visitors. Cox Media Group-owned NBC affiliate WPXI averaged approximately 654,667 monthly unique visitors in the same nine-month period, according to comScore; for the year ending November 2011, the monthly average was 645,917 unique visitors.

ComScore only began tracking unique visitors for individual CBS Local sites last November, meaning it doesn’t have any prior metrics for CBS affiliate KDKA-TV’s website pittsburgh.cbslocal.com. According to metrics compiled by Kantar Media’s Compete, the site had an average of 518,349 unique visitors a month for the year ending November 2011. (Repeated calls and emails addressed to WPXI staffers requesting an interview were not returned, and KDKA did not accommodate an interview or answer written questions by deadline.)

Despite having the most frequented local media site in Pittsburgh, the Post-Gazette’s Leonard said the site’s architecture was obsolete and the design dated. Post-Gazette.com is too cluttered (there are around 92 different sections, Leonard said), and readers can’t even post comments on the site.