Several Days In May: PBS Claims Its Web Traffic Tops Broadcast; Depends Who You Ask

Discussion Policy

Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

David Kaplan

paidContent.org
Thursday, June 26, 2008; 6:07 PM

PBS is crediting improved video offerings and search engine optimization efforts for helping propel its traffic upward 25 percent over last year, a leap that helped it beat the broadcast nets' sites. Citing Hitwise stats, during the weeks of May 31, June 7, 14 and 21, the public broadcaster's site ranked number one in market share with numbers around 24 percent of U.S. visits among TV networks. It was followed by ABC.com (around 20 percent), with NBC.com, Fox TV sites and CBS ( NYSE: CBS) fluctuating between 13- and 18 percent during the past few weeks.

But when it comes to metrics, it depends who you ask. Looking at the entire month of May, comScore ( NSDQ: SCOR) ranks ABC.com highest for broadcast TV networks with 9.7 million uniques compared to PBS.org with 3.8 million uniques. The year-over-year leap for PBS wasn't that great either, according to comScore figures: in May 2007, PBS attracted 3.6 million uniques for a gain of 5.6 percent.

-- Update: PBS rep Kevin Dando says the company's internal numbers correspond with the Hitwise data, especially the yearover year increase, and makes the oft-heard argument that comScore undercounts the site's at-work users. He added that PBS values visits over uniques, not because the numbers are naturally higher, but because "it's more indicative of habitual traffic." As for comScore, it measured 5.1 million visits in May 2007 to PBS.org and 5.7 million, which gives the public broadcaster a year-over-year rise of 11.8 percent.

PBS Begins Testing Subscription-based, Ad-free Virtual World Aimed At Toddlers

PBS Continues Online Push With iTunes Video