米連邦通信委員会がジョージワシントン大のMatthew Hindman教授に諮問した地域ニュースに関する分析「
同じものならいらない（Less of the Same: The Lack of Local News on the Internet）」が公開された。放送エリアなどを基準に100のメディア市場について多変量分析をしたもので、ネット上の地域ニュースは「驚くほど小さい読者しか持たない」という。
読み通す気力はないので、ニーマン研の紹介（Nieman Journalism Lab :
Who clicks more on local news, New York or Omaha? Surprising data from the FCC on local online news）を孫引きすると、、、
報告では、ユニークユーザーという指標が、個人が複数の端末を利用する現実や、数多ある訪問サイトすべてで１として可算されるという過剰指数であることを考慮しながら、各メディアの市場シェアを推定している。
地域ニュースサイトのリーチは、最大手グループでも平均17.8%、最下位グループでは4.3%に過ぎない＝図。
- オンラインの地域ニュースサイトは平均的市場では月間11.4PageViewしかない。
- 個人標本データ（約600人）の過半数で、ローカルサイトのシェアは0.3-0.63%しかない。これは一人当たり月間8.3-17PageViewにすぎない。
- ニュース部門に限っても、地域ニュースの閲覧数は20%に満たない。
- 平均的市場では、ユーザーが地域ニュースに接する時間は月間9.1分で、これはネット市場時間の0.45%にすぎない。
調査対象1074サイトのうち、地域ニュースに特化した（伝統メディアの運営ではない）純オンラインサイトは17しかなかったというのが「最大の驚き」だったそうだ。その中で最も成功しているのはSeattle PI（オンライン限定に移行した元ポスト・インテリゲンサー紙）だという。
その他のNPO型ニュースサイト（Bay Citizen, Baristanet, The Gotham Gazette, the Minnesota Independent）は、シェア1％に設定した閾値を超えられなかったため、データに反映できなかった。ハイパーローカル専業のPatchでさえ、データにはほとんど反映されていないという。
ブログが代替しているのではないかという見通しについて、ポートランドで20人以上の読者がある11の地域ブログを検討したが、平均して一日4000ワード以下の内容しかなく、「新聞の１ページにさえ満たない」という。
多変量分析らしい結論は以下の通り。
- 新聞購読率が低い市場ではネット専業ニュースサイトが多い。しかし、新聞の地域ニュースを補っているというデータは発見できない。
- ヒスパニックや黒人の多い市場ほど、オンライン地域ニュースサイトは少ない。
- ヒスパニックの多い市場では地域ニュースの閲覧が少ない。
- 一人当たりの所得が多い市場ほど、ニュースの需要は少ない。
「インターネットが地域の声を拡大したかというと、答えは、comScoreで見る限り、断じてノーだ」という。以下は結論部分。
Has the Internet significantly expanded the number of local news voices? The answer that emerges from the comScore data is firm but qualified “no.” We can say the least about the very smallest online news sources—those that receive less than a few thousand unique visitors monthly, and are thus unlikely to appear in our data.
But above this threshold, we find almost no evidence that the Internet has expanded the number of local news outlets.
Most television markets have fewer than a dozen local news Websites. Those sites that do receive an audience are overwhelmingly newspaper and local television station Websites, rather than new and independent sources of local news. Only 16 of our top 100 markets have an unaffiliated Internet news source that reaches our onepercent
audience threshold. Even the exceptions prove the rule: the four most successful Internet‐only news sites were all related to the closure of a traditional print newspaper. The fact that sites like SeattlePI.com continue with a skeleton crew is welcome, but it does not represent an expansion of media diversity. Online local news markets resemble downsized versions of traditional media news markets, with the same news stories produced by the same newspapers and television stations.
Even more surprising than the small number of outlets, or the lack of new Webnative news organizations, is just how small the online news market is. Discussions about the newspaper crisis often start with the claim that online news has a revenue problem, not a readership problem. John Morton’s (2010) recent assessment is typical, arguing that the problem with newspaper sites is that “Lots of people came, but lots of advertising didn't.”
The comScore data show that this diagnosis is wrong. The central problem facing local online news sites is that their audiences are small—and proportionally much smaller than even many publishers and journalists seem to realize. Metrics such as monthly audience reach are often falsely inflated, and deceptive even when measured accurately. If a particular news startup gets a few tens of thousands of page views a month, the site is hailed as a success—even though many citizens view thousands of pages a month each, and even though page views last less than 30 seconds each on average. Online local news has a revenue problem largely because it has a readership problem.
A detailed economic analysis of the state of local news is outside the scope of this study. Nonetheless, the fact that local news sites capture little of citizens’ attention has obvious economic implications. If we want to understand the financial viability of advertising‐supported local news on the Web, we should focus on two questions.
First, how valuable is the entire online advertising space in a given media market?
Second, how much of that online space do local news sites control? In 2009, the last year for which full data are available, online advertising revenue in the U.S. totaled $22.7 billion dollars (IAB 2010). That amounts to $74 per person. In the long run, how much of that $74 is going to accrue to a group of sites that gets one‐half of one
percent of page views in a typical market?
For more than a decade, some have suggested that the Internet and other technologies (such as cable television) have made it less necessary to regulate broadcast media. According to this reasoning, the Internet has increased the
number of local news and information outlets available to citizens, strengthened news competition, and broadened diversity of news voices.
Arguments that the Internet has expanded the number of local news voices, or allowed new Web‐based news outlets to fill gaps in news coverage, find little support in this data. In deciding Prometheus v. FCC (2004), the court’s majority worried that online local news sources might just be repackaged versions of television and newspaper content. The comScore data show that this is indeed the case.
Some have found evidence of consumer substitution between online and traditional news sources (Waldfogel 2003). For national news, and particularly for commodity news content, this finding likely holds. But the comScore data make it difficult to sustain the same argument with regard to local news content. We find few examples of Web‐native news sites that are straightforward substitutes for the product of a television station or a newspaper. Even in markets with relatively successful blog communities, the top blogs produce only a trickle of content. The lack of traffic these sites receive is a strong clue that citizens themselves do not think that they are comparable to television and newspaper Websites.
The low levels of traffic that local news sites receive should color regulators’assessments in other ways as well. The small audience for local news online makes it implausible that a midsized or smaller media market can support numerous online‐only news organizations with adequate staff and resources. The story of hyper local journalism thus far has been paved with economic failure, as the long list of such failed experiments shows.
Lastly, there is evidence that media concentration offline carries over into online media markets. Most local news markets on the Web are dominated by just a few firms. If online local news were to be considered as a separate market, half the 100 largest markets would qualify as highly concentrated under Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission HHI guidelines, and nearly all would be considered at least moderately concentrated.
Perhaps the most striking example of offline media structure intersecting with local news on the Web is seen with newspaper‐television cross‐ownership. In cities where a firm owns both a newspaper and a television station, we find an estimated jump in the Herfindahl‐Hirschman Index greater than 1000 points. While the underlying causal relationship deserves more study, these numbers make a strong argument for regulatory caution. Restrictions on media cross‐ownership do not just matter in print and on the airwaves: they likely impact news diversity on the Web as well.
