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Is an over-reliance on the figures failing publishers, Alasdair Reid asks
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It's just as well, really, that Martin Clarke, the publisher of Mail Online, speaks from a position of strength when he questions the value of the ABCe figures. If Mail Online had posted disappointing figures in the latest results, then his comments might sound like sour grapes. No danger of that, though the site actually came top of the pile in the numbers for June, its figure of 29.3 million monthly unique visitors placing it ahead of all other UK newspaper websites.
Clarke admits he is delighted with this outcome. But here's the caveat - the ABCe system, he reckons, actually does the British newspaper industry no favours at all. In the monthly headline figure, he argues, a random visitor who lands on the site once a month and looks at one page is given the same weight as one who visits loyally every day and consumes dozens of articles.
He adds: "The point is that yields on the internet are lower compared with print yields - and that 's largely because there's a massive oversupply of inventory across the web. We're effectively competing with anyone who's ever put together a blog or a chatroom. Our argument is that if newspapers are to make money from advertising, then we have...