Dear Todd Lihou – If you’re going to write about numbers maybe actually use numbers? CFN Feb Stats!

lihouCORNWALL Ontario –  That wacky Todd Lihou of the Seaway News has been caught telling Porkies again.

Mr. Lihou wrote a column spouting how awesome the Seaway News is numerically speaking only he didn’t really give out numbers.  He just congratulated his paper while mentioning some limp stories.

Frankly if you’re going to talk numbers give out numbers.

Mr. Lihou actually used the term “hits” which by online standards is antiquated, and near meaningless as a page can have multiples of hits on it.   LINK

In the biz we go by Unique Visitors, Visits, Page Views, and then of course demographic break downs.

What division are you talking about Todd and what the number or link to them?

In short, we tripled our numbers from a year ago and led our division for the first time.

That’s kinda meaningless without real data.  I mean if you only had a thousand page views is it really an accomplishment to hit 3,000?   And likewise if you have 1 Million wouldn’t it be harder to get to 3 Million?

In February things got downright nutty with tens of thousands of clicks that, quite frankly, blew us away: our next closest competition, which are newspapers that service that same Ottawa/Gatineau area, are about 27,000 clicks in our rear-view mirror.

There he is with clicks…who is your closest competition?  I could have sworn that the Seaway News competition would be CFN, the Standard Freeholder, Corus Radio, and of course the Seeker which is another giveaway paper.  That’s your competition?  Who are you competing with in Ottawa Gatineau?

Last year for example the Freeholder ran a full page trumpeting their numbers in comparison to the other media in Cornwall minus CFN because CFN had and has better numbers.   This is tantamount to  lying to the public, no?

While I can see Mr. Lihou and Shaver being this deceptive to the public; is Transcontinental or TC Media really that goofy?

Btw, here are CFN’s numbers for February 2014.   We double dare you Todd to show your real numbers, hard, clean and true.

Unique Visitors

57, 939  up 42% from February 2013

Number of Visits

184,910 up 61% from February 2013

Pages Viewed

2,815,634 up 59% from February 2013

Hits

7,603,267  up 53% from February 2013

Bandwidth

216.14 GB  up 84% from February 2013

So Todd if you’re going to brag about numbers put them up.  Don’t jerk the public around and deceive the viewers of our community.     Why is it that you refused to put up real numbers?  Are you afraid of the truth?

Our Top Five Stories for February 2014

1) Police Ask Public to Stay Away from Prince Albert Street

2) Things heat up at Scores as Firetrucks arrive

3)  My statement about police charges.

4) Wear a Pink Shirt Day

5) Prince Albert Street Barricade Ends with Edward Hall 44 Charged

Btw, here are some more numbers via our Google Analytics

Demographics by Age

18-24 27.50%

25-34  33.5%

35-44 15.5%

45-54 12.5%

55-64  5.5%

65+  5.5%

Male  54.15%    Female 45.85%

Visits

Canada 90.23 %

Ontario 80.62%

1) Cornwall

2) Montreal

3) Ottawa

4) Toronto

5) Kingston

6) Brockville

7) Gatineau

8.) Morrisburg

9) Calgary

10) Mississauga

Nearly 17% of our viewers visited CFN 25 or more times per month in February.

So Mr. Lihou, Mr. Shaver, Mr. Brazeau, Mr. Lapierre; there is no foul in not finishing first.  It should  be motivation to work harder, but to spout numbers without actually giving numbers and using a term like “hits” in today’s age of Online Newspapers…is well…bush.

Frankly it’s because of the public not having trust in   reporting from “traditional” media that has led to the results that CFN has been getting now for five years.

And that’s what advertisers want to see.  Real numbers.   You can give away all the papers you want but that doesn’t tell anyone how many are actually read.   Online can give out those results.    So instead of insulting myself and CFN as you so frequently do why not simply compete harder and beat me at the business we are in which is attracting eyeballs.

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7 Comments

  1. I love the seaway news but it has the worst website on record
    When you post a comment nothing appears for up to an hour
    This leads the few people posting there to click again and again so u get the same comment two or three times
    Big Mac seems to have carried the Mayor Kilger bandwagon across town from the Freeholder to Seaway news but the story is exactly the same. I don’t go to either paper often but don’t remember the last critical
    article on how this city has been run. Probably because there hasn’t been one.
    One Last Note to SeawayNews
    When one of your top commentators is called Joseph Gobbells (google it kids) something is wrong!!!!!

  2. The demographics by age sort of explains the situation in Cornwall, in that many people know about the corruption and self serving that goes on in governance, but little gets done about it.

    The over 45’s — the city’s moneyed, the establishment, and those that actually get out to vote — are at the low end of CFN readership. They are either blissfully unaware of, or thinking that nobody will confront, the crippling corruption and incompetence that keeps Cornwall mired in poverty and ignorance.

    The younger readership could however mean hope for the future …if they don’t have to leave town for better employment and education.

  3. Author

    Simon seeing the “beatings” that are dished out to anyone that rocks the boat in Cornwall you can see how it’s far easier for our talented young people to leave for more money than stay and fight to change things. But that’s exactly what will have to happen to trigger change. The “Old Boys” will not share or treat outsiders fairly of their own volition.

  4. sun media is own by a multi millionair in quebec he is running for the separatist party he received the order of canada he owns the standaR FREEHOLDER GO FIGURE he wants to separate why would we read his bullcrap. Who owns the seaway news????????????????

  5. Author

    Fern, Pierre Karl Peladeau is not a millionaire. He’s a Billionaire. And yes, Quebecor owns the Free Holder. And yes he’s the largest shareholder of Quebecor. TC Media or Transcontinental is also a Quebec media outlet that just bought 75 weekly newspapers from Quebecor as Sun TV may be costing them more than expected to prop up.

  6. so you are the only independent news guy in cornwall …………………i love it

  7. Author

    Greg Kielec from le Journal was tackling some of the city issues, but they let him go sadly. There are rumours that it was alleged that the City sent nasty letters to le Journal which resulted in them quieting down.

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