Building Networked Audiences
Muhammad Ali Hashmi
Winter 2012
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The News International
The News International is one of the two largest English-language newspapers in
Pakistan. Its parent company Independent Media Corporation circulates the highest
number of newspapers in the country (Shoeb, 2011, p. 32) and is Pakistan’s largest media
conglomerate. The News International’s website thenews.com.pk is ranked at 70 by
alexa.com in country ranking for Pakistan (See Exhibit 1).
Audience demographics: thenews.com.pk
According to internetworldstats.com1, Pakistan has an Internet penetration of 15.5
percent, which is higher than India’s 10.2 percent. Pakistan’s overall literacy rate is 57
percent, according to the latest Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM)
Survey2 2008‐09. The literacy rate in urban areas is 74 percent, while in rural areas it is 48
percent. Urban areas in Pakistan, like most developing nations, are economic and education
hubs. Most of the educated people live in urban cities where the Internet is easily available.
In addition, there are 3.7 million3 Pakistanis who live abroad. Pakistani diaspora shares the
same demographic profile as Pakistanis in urban areas of Pakistan.
The thenews.com.pk is an English-language news site; its audience is primarily
English-speaking, educated Pakistanis, who either live abroad or in the urban areas of
1 http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia.htm 2 http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/pakistan-social-and-living-standards-measurement-survey-pslm-2008-09- provincial-district 3 http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/pakistani-expats-given-right-to-vote-back-home-to-ensure- remittances/
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Pakistan. According to alexa.com, 68.3 percent of its visitors are from Pakistan, 9.0 percent from India, 4.7 percent from the US, 3.4 percent from UK, 1.7 percent from UAE, 1.6 percent from Canada, 1.5 percent from Australia and 1 percent from Mauritius (See Exhibit 2).
When it comes to education demographics, people who went to graduate school are greatly over-represented at thenews.com.pk, while all other educational bands (people who did not go to college, people with some college education and people who went to college) are either greatly-underrepresented or under-represented.
According to alexa.com, the age group 35-to-44 is under-represented at thenews.com.pk, relative to the general internet population. On the other hand, the age group 55-64 is over-represented at thenews.com.pk.
When it comes to gender, relative to the general internet population, males are over- represented at thenews.com.pk. In contrast, female gender is under-represented at thenews.com.pk.
Finally, its audience groups with children and without children have representation similar to the general internet population.
Basic Traffic Metrics
According to alexa.com, thenews.com.pk has a global rank of 6,352 and a country
rank of 70 (See exhibit 1). It currently has an estimated worldwide traffic of unique
470,0004 visitors per month, according to Google Ad Planner. Out of its 470,000 visitors, it
has 290,000 visitors from Pakistan; 53,000 visitors from USA; 39,000 visitors from India;
27,000 visitors from UK; and 15,000 visitors from Canada (See exhibit 3).
4 unduplicated number of people who visit a site over a specific month
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According to comScore.com5 (See exhibit 4), traffic on thenews.com.pk has increased 245.2 percent to 144,000 unique visitors in Jan. 2012 from 41,714 visitors in Jan.
2011. However, according to compete.com, the site had 47,884 unique visitors per month in Jan 2011, up 48.80 percent from 32,181 in Jan. 2011 (Both comScore.com and compete.com generate statistics for the US region only).
Political events drive traffic at thenews.com.pk. Regardless of the discrepancy in visitors’ calculation, both comScore.com (Figure 1, left) and compete.com (Figure 1, right) show that thenews.com.pk saw spikes in May 2011 and Nov. 2011. These spikes could be attributed to political events in Pakistan. In May 20116, Osama bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALS in Pakistan. In Nov. 2011, NATO air-strike killed at least two dozen
Pakistani soldiers. In addition, Imran Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, pulled a huge rally in Lahore on Oct. 307, which created a news commotion in the subsequent month.
Figure 1
As per latest numbers, the site thenews.com.pk has recorded 6.7 million page views worldwide, according to Google Ad Planner. It is a low number, considering Canada’s
Toronto Star’s thestar.com has 51 million page views worldwide. Out of 6.7 million page
5 For United States users 6 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-is-killed.html?pagewanted=all
7 http://tribune.com.pk/story/285058/pti-rally-in-lahore-live-updates/
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views, 3.1 million are from Pakistan; 1 million from USA; 240,000 from India; 620,000 from
UK; and 380,000 from Canada.
Data from alexa.com indicates that page views have increased since Dec 2011.
Average estimated percentage of global page views on thenews.com.pk have increased by to 0.001063 in the last three months, up 14 percent from the previous period. At the start of
2011, page view percentage metric was around 0.0005 percent. The latest number is around 0.00125— an increase of about 150 percent since 2011.
Figure 2 alexa.com According to alexa.com, the average of estimated daily unique page views per user was 5.12 for the last three months, up 3 percent from the previous period. The average time spent on the site by a user was around 5 minutes 59 seconds for the last three months, down 18 percent from the previous period.
Competitive Landscape
Apart from The News International, the four leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan are Dawn News (dawn.com), Daily Times (dailytimes.com.pk), The Express
Tribune (tribune.com.pk) and The Nation (nation.com.pk). Established by Pakistan’s founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1951, Dawn News has an “elitist readership” and
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is the most-widely read English-language newspaper in Pakistan (Shoeb, 2011, pp. 31-35).
Dawn News has been the main competitor of The News International in the last two
decades. However, in 20108, the Pakistani media company Century Publications Pvt
Limited partnered with International Herald Tribune to launch The Express Tribune, which
has now become a serious competitor to The News International.
The market space for thenews.com.pk is extremely competitive. According to
compete.com, the news.com.pk ranks third among sites similar to it in the US region: 1)
dawn.com 94,920; 2) tribune.com.pk 68,068; 3) thenews.com.pk 47,884; 4) dailytimes.com.pk 31,810; 5) nation.com.pk 31,602 (See exhibit 5).
According to latest Google Ad Planner results, dawn.com has an estimated
worldwide traffic of unique 900,000— almost double that of the thenews.com.pk— visitors
per month. It recorded 420,000 visitors from Pakistan; 200,000 visitors from USA; 57,000
visitors from India; 62,000 visitors from UK; and 51,000 visitors from Canada. The site
tribune.com.pk has an estimated worldwide traffic of unique 620,000 visitors per month—
which is 150,000 more than the figure for thenews.com.pk. It recorded 430,000 visitors
from Pakistan; 63,000 visitors from USA; 30,000 visitors from India; and 20,000 visitors
from Canada. (See exhibit 3 and Figure 3 below)
8 http://www.ihtinfo.com/pdfs/pressreleases/IHT%20CPPL%20pub%20alliance%20press%20release%20FINAL%20Ja n2010.pdf
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63,000 tribune.com.pk 430,000 620,000
53,000 USA thenews.com.pk 290,000 Pakistan 470,000 Worldwide
200,000 dawn.com 420,000 900,000
0 400,000 800,000
Figure 3 Comparison between Dawn News, The News International, The Express Tribune
Interestingly, BBC Online (bbc.co.uk) has 750,000 unique visitors per month,
according to Google Ad Planner. In terms of Alexa country rankings, bbc.co.uk is ranked at
26 in Pakistan, tribune.com.pk at 54, dawn.com at 66 and news.com.pk at 70. This means
that the competition landscape is quite tough for news.com.pk. Figure 3 shows that
thenews.com.pk lags behind dawn.com and tribune.com.pk in the major markets.
Linking and Search Engine Optimization
According prchecker.info, a third party tool to check Google’s page ranking, thnews.com.pk and tribune.com.pk have a page rank of 6, while dawn.com has a page rank
of 89.
The site thenews.com.pk receives nearly one-fifths of its referrals from search
engines. The percentage of visits to thenews.com.pk that came from a search engine for last
9 Nytimes.com has a page rank of 9.
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30 days is 17.6 percent, according to alexa.com.
Google Ad Planner assigns a numeric score called affinity to sites and key words.
The affinity score shows the relationship between a site and a keyword. According to
Google affinity score, a person, in Pakistan, searching for the keyword “news” is 39.4 times more likely than the average internet user to visit thenews.com.pk. Similarly, a person searching for the keywords “jang” is 6.4 times more likely than the average internet user to visit thenews.com.pk (See Figure 4).
Keyword affinity (for a user in Pakistan)
yahoo sign 3.6 gmail 3.6 geo news 4 geo tv live 4.4 geo tv 4.8 express news 4.8 daily jang 5.3 geo news live 5.9 jang 6.4 news 39.4
0 10 20 30 40 50
Figure 4 keyword affinity When it comes to queries driving traffic to thenews.com.pk, the keyword “the
news epaper” drives 10.9 percent of its traffic and the keyword “the news” drives
6.61 percent of its traffic, according to alexa.com (Figure 5). The e-paper site
(http://e.thenews.com.pk) hosts the scanned version of the newspaper on its site.
This suggests that people do not particularly like the website layout and are
therefore searching for its e-paper version.
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the news jang, 0.79% arfa karim the pakistan, randhawa, newsepaper, 0.96% 0.67% 0.72% bpl t20, 1.56% pakistan the news news, 1.87% epaper, 10.90% news, 2.64%
arfa karim, 3.93% the news, 6.51%
Figure 5 keyword metrics, alexa.com Google shows about 1,140,000 results for thenews.com.pk. The site dawn.com has comparable results (1,150,000) on Google search.
On Google search, for the search query “Pakistan news,” thenews.com.pk is listed at second position after dawn.com. On thenews.com.pk, the following keywords are listed in its meta tags: “breaking, news, latest, online news, today news, editorial, opinion, sports, cricket, business, stock, fashion, entertainment, health, education, fashion, lifestyle, weather, blogs, kayani, army, zardari, wikileaks, chief justice, nawaz, altaf, bomb blast, suicide attack, target killing, war on terror, corruption, karachi, lahore, islamabad, pindi, peshawar, quetta, swat, waziristan, taliban, judges, supreme court, NRO, NAB, political news, crime, PPP, PMLN, MQM, audio news, video news, Salman Taseer, Governor Punjab”
The keywords contain several terms relevant to the current events. For example,
Salman Taseer— a high-profile politician who was assassinated10 in early 2011— is listed
in the keywords. However, strikingly, thenews.com.pk has no reference to search term
“Pakistan” in its keywords. Additionally, it does not include “Imran Khan”— currently the
10 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/world/asia/05pakistan.html?pagewanted=all
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most popular leader in Pakistan, according to a 2011 Pew Research11 survey— or “PTI12” in its keywords.
On the other hand, dawn.com includes the following keywords: “Pakistan News,
Pakistani News, Pakistani Newspaper, Pakistan latest news, Updated news of Pakistan, fresh news in Pakistan, Pakistan, PTI, Imran Khan.”
Google Keyword tool lists “about pakistan,” “cricket live” and “pakistani” as the top three keyword ideas in terms of global and local searches. The title tag of news.com.pk (The
News International: Latest, Breaking, Pakistan, Sports and Video News) is missing these key terms. The site dawn.com, on the other hand, includes “Pakistani News” and “Cricket” in its title tags.
Google Insights lists “news in pakistan,” “live news Pakistan” and “geo news pakistan” as top search terms for “Pakistan News.” Since Geo News—Pakistan’s most popular news channel— is a sister site thenews.com.pk, it should make an explicit reference to these keywords.
The site backlinkcheck.com lists about 284,891 backlink (inbound links) results for thenews.com.pk. However, there are very few inbound links with high page rank. Relevant backlinks include: tibet.net (page rank 7), thelede.blogs.nytimes.com (page rank 7) ppp.org.pk (page rank 6) and thereligionofpeace.com (page rank 6).
11 http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2032/pakistan-public-opinion-osama-bin-laden-india-terrorism-al-qaeda- american-image 12 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, political party founded by Imran Khan
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Social Media Presence
In an age of social media, The News International’s page
facebook.com/TheNewsInternational has decent Facebook presence. Currently it has more
than 29,500 likes, and there are more than 1800 people talking about it. On the other hand,
The Express Tribune, its main competitor on Facebook, is doing much better in terms of
audience numbers: Currently, The Express Tribune has more than 104,000 likes, and there
are more than 7500 people talking about it. Dawn News, The News International’s second
competitor, has more than 55,500 likes, and there are 1300 people talking about it.
It seems that the Facebook updates are posted automatically from the CMS story
titles and summaries. The News is not cultivating Facebook-centric content. Dawn News, on
the other hand, selectively posts its content on its Facebook page. It also posts interactive
polls on its wall regularly. The Express Tribune page is very well organized on Facebook
and the quality of visuals is stimulating.
A study13 by Pew Research shows that media organizations use Twitter primarily to
distribute their own content, and The News International is no different: Like Facebook
updates, tweets are posted automatically from its content management system’s story
titles. Its tweet frequency is the same as its Facebook’s update frequency. The News
13 http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_mainstream_media_outlets_use_twitter?src=prc-headline
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International’s account has around 4300 followers on its Twitter account @thenews_intl.
Dawn News (@dawn_com) and The Express Tribune(@etribune) have a better following
on Twitter; both have more than 17,000 followers.
YouTube
The News International website links to “Geo” channel, which is its sister
entertainment broadcast channel, on YouTube. The channel has more than 153, 000
subscribers and more than 142 million video views.
Partnership Analysis
The News International has not partnered with any website or media organization
to grow its audience. A partnership between The News and Espncricinfo may prove to be
beneficial for The News International. Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world
with 2-to-3 billion fans all over the world. Culturally, it is the most popular sport in the
Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. ESPNcricinfo.com is the most popular cricket news website in the world. According to the Google AdPlanner, espncricinfo.com generates 11 million
unique users per month.
The users who visit thenews.com.pk also typically visit Espncricinfo website. The
data (Figure 6) from Google Ad Planner shows that Espncricinfo is the only website—
visited by thenews.com.pk users— that is not a direct competitor of The News
International. The News International also covers cricket but cricket users all over the
world use Espncricinfo as their primary source of cricket news.
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A partnership between The News and Espncricinfo can drive up SEO rankings for thenews.com.pk through inbound links from a high-page-rank site like espncricinfo.com.
Figure 6 Google Ad Planner The News International can also forge a strategic partnership with The Times of
India— the leading English News daily from India. According to the Google AdPlanner, timesofindia.indiatimes.com generates 8.1 million unique users per month. Independent
Media Corporation—the parent company of The News International—launched a campaign for peace— Aman ki Asha— with The Times of India Group to promote peace initiatives between India and Pakistan. A strategic partnership between The Times of India and The
News International seems logical and undoubtedly fruitful for both parties. Both parties can push an influx of users to the other party by creating a news exchange portal.
While the Internet penetration in Pakistan is 15.5 percent, the mobile penetration in
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Pakistan is around 60 percent. Pakistan has more than 110 million14 mobile subscribers.
The News can significantly increase its audience by partnering with Mobilink, the leading mobile phone operator in Pakistan.
14 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html
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Recommendations summary:
Audience
1) Since the age group 35-to-44 is under-represented at thenews.com.pk, the site
needs to cultivate interest areas for this particular age-group. These interests could
range from cricket to financial information. CNN, for example, has branded its
business website as CNN Money; the age group 35-to-44 represents 34 percent of its
audience. The News International could do something similar to attract this age
group.
2) When it comes to gender, relative to the general internet population, female gender
is under-represented at thenews.com.pk. The News International could target this
audience by highlighting its female opinion-piece writers on its website.
3) Pakistan has more than 110 million15 mobile subscribers. The News International
can significantly increase its audience by partnering with Mobilink, the leading
mobile phone operator in Pakistan. The partnership could entail default use of
m.thenews.com.pk website on users’ phones.
4) According to alexa.com, “the news epaper” drives 10.9 percent of its traffic. The
e-paper (http://e.thenews.com.pk) hosts the scanned version of the newspaper
on its site. This suggests that people do not particularly like the website layout
and are looking for a newspaper-like experience through its e-paper version.
The News International should consider re-designing the website. The Express
Tribune website is less cluttered and visually pleasing; it could be one of the
reasons why tribune.com.pk is generating more traffic than thenews.com.pk.
15 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html
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Search Engine Optimization:
1) The site should include key search terms “Pakistan,” “Imran Khan,” “PTI,”
“Pakistani,” “Cricket” and “Pakistani News” in its keywords (See discussion under
SEO section).
2) The site thenews.com.pk should update its title tag as well. Google Keyword tool
lists “about pakistan,” “cricket live” and “pakistani” as the top three keyword ideas
in terms of global and local searches. The title tag of news.com.pk (The News
International: Latest, Breaking, Pakistan, Sports and Video News) is missing these
key terms.
Social Media Presence:
1) The site should update its Facebook page to Timeline format on Facebook, which is
more visually appealing.
2) It should cultivate discussions and activity on its Facebook page by posting polls,
trivia and questions. Currently, thenews.com.pk is only posting its stories on the
page.
3) The News International needs to cultivate its audience and presence on Twitter by
“engaging” the audience through discussions. It can use its opinion writers to spawn
new discussion on Twitter.
4) Instead of linking to YouTube Geo channel – its sister entertainment broadcast
channel— it should link to its sister channel “Geo News”— the most popular news
channel in Pakistan— because ‘news’ is more relevant from perspective of
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the.news.com.pk. “Geo News” has more than 28,000 and more than 9 million video
views.
Partnership
1) A partnership between The News and Espncricinfo can drive up SEO rankings for
The News International through inbound links from a high-page-rank site like
Espncricinfo. The site espncricinfo.com has an Alexa global rank of 192 and
generates about 11 million unique users per month.
2) A strategic partnership between The Times of India and The News International
seems logical and undoubtedly fruitful for both parties. Both parties can push an
influx of users to the other party by creating a news exchange portal. The site
indiatimes.com has an Alexa global rank of 143 and generates about 8.1 million
unique users per month.
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Exhibit 1
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Exhibit 2
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Exhibit 3
Traffic statistics Pakistan All traffic statistics are news.com.pk estimates Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 270K 690K Unique visitors (users) 290K 470K Reach 1.4% 0.0% Page views 3.1M 6.7M Total visits 440K 1.1M Avg visits per cookie 1.6 1.6 Avg time on site 18:20 16:40
Traffic statistics USA All traffic statistics are estimates
news.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 140K 690K Unique visitors (users) 53K 470K Reach 0.0% 0.0% Page views 1M 6.7M Total visits 220K 1.1M Avg visits per cookie 1.6 1.6 Avg time on site 13:00 16:40
Traffic statistics India All traffic statistics are estimates
news.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 39K 690K Unique visitors (users) 20K 470K Reach 0.0% 0.0% Page views 240K 6.7M Total visits 39K 1.1M Avg visits per cookie 1 1.6 Avg time on site 31:40 16:40
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Traffic statistics UK All traffic statistics are estimates
news.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 70K 690K Unique visitors (users) 27K 470K Reach 0.1% 0.0% Page views 620K 6.7M Total visits 110K 1.1M Avg visits per cookie 1.5 1.6 Avg time on site 25:00 16:40
Traffic statistics UAE All traffic statistics are estimates news.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 17K 690K Unique visitors (users) 8.6K 470K Reach 0.3% 0.0% Page views 200K 6.7M Total visits 30K 1.1M Avg visits per cookie 1.8 1.6 Avg time on site 15:40 16:40
Traffic statistics Canada All traffic statistics are estimates
news.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 36K 690K Unique visitors (users) 15K 470K Reach 0.1% 0.0% Page views 380K 6.7M
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Total visits 62K 1.1M Avg visits per cookie 1.7 1.6 Avg time on site 14:20 16:40
Traffic statistics USA All traffic statistics are estimates
Tribune.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 200K 910K Unique visitors (users) 63K 620K Reach 0.0% 0.0% Page views 820K 3.8M Total visits 250K 1.3M Avg visits per cookie 1.3 1.4 Avg time on site 7:10 7:10
Traffic statistics Pakistan All traffic statistics are estimates
Tribune.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 390K 910K Unique visitors (users) 430K 620K Reach 2.0% 0.0% Page views 1.8M 3.8M Total visits 580K 1.3M Avg visits per cookie 1.5 1.4 Avg time on site 8:00 7:10
Traffic statistics India All traffic statistics are estimates
Tribune.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 63K 910K Unique visitors (users) 30K 620K Reach 0.1% 0.0% Page views 240K 3.8M Total visits 83K 1.3M Avg visits per cookie 1.3 1.4 Avg time on site 7:10 7:10
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Traffic statistics UK All traffic statistics are estimates
Tribune.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 84K 910K All traffic Unique visitors (users) 32K 620K statistics are Reach 0.1% 0.0% estimates Page views 290K 3.8M Total visits 120K 1.3M Avg visits per cookie 1.4 1.4 Avg time on site 5:20 7:10
T raffic statistics Canada Tribune.com.pk Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 43K 910K Unique visitors (users) 20K 620K Reach 0.1% 0.0% Page views 260K 3.8M Total visits 90K 1.3M Avg visits per cookie 2.1 1.4 Avg time on site 7:10 7:10
All traffic statistics are estimates Traffic statistics USA Dawn.com Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 520K 1.5M Unique visitors (users) 200K 900K Reach 0.1% 0.0% Page views 6.2M 15M Total visits 1.5M 3.7M Avg visits per cookie 2.8 2.4 Avg time on site 7:20 9:00
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Traffic statistics Pakistan All traffic statistics are estimates
Dawn.com Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 390K 1.5M Unique visitors (users) 420K 900K Reach 2.0% 0.0% Page views 2.9M 15M Total visits 730K 3.7M Avg visits per cookie 1.8 2.4 Avg time on site 9:50 9:00
All traffic statistics are estimates Traffic statistics India Dawn.com Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 100K 1.5M Unique visitors (users) 57K 900K Reach 0.1% 0.0% Page views 760K 15M Total visits 190K 3.7M Avg visits per cookie 1.9 2.4 Avg time on site 9:50 9:00
All traffic statistics are estimates Traffic statistics UK Dawn.com Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 150K 1.5M Unique visitors (users) 62K 900K Reach 0.1% 0.0% Page views 1.1M 15M Total visits 280K 3.7M Avg visits per cookie 1.8 2.4 Avg time on site 9:00 9:00
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All traffic statistics are estimates Traffic statistics Canada Dawn.com Region Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 130K 1.5M Unique visitors (users) 51K 900K Reach 0.2% 0.0% Page views 1.6M 15M Total visits 350K 3.7M Avg visits per cookie 2.8 2.4 Avg time on site 9:50 9:00
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Exhibit 4
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Exhibit 5
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Bibliography
Shoeb, N. F. (2011). An analysis of Urdu and English editorial coverage of the 2007 Emergency from Pakistani newspapers. ProQuest.
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