CFN – There’s a group on facebook that boycotts Sun News. So it wasn’t so surprising to see CFN have a tiny boycott group of our own. They even posted a list of our sponsors and contacted a bunch. While that’s not good for business or the community it hasn’t dampered our numbers which are up for March over February!
In honour of Seaway News Editor Todd Lihou who raved about their numbers without displaying them, we will issue our monthly Lihou Report which is essentially the same report we issue every month with some of the breakdowns of our numbers and reach on CFN.
Number for March 2014
Unique Visitors
58,764 up 44% from March 2013
Number of Visits
202,412 up 48% from March 2013
Pages Viewed
3,083,524 up 32% from March 2013
Hits (Mr. Lihou’s fave stat!)
7,131,553 up 27% from March 2013
Bandwidth
195.55 GB up 44% from March 2013
Now Todd you love numbers. I double dare you to post the Seaway News numbers!
Btw, here are some more numbers via our Google Analytics
Visits
Canada 88.06 %
Ontario 81.69%
Top Cities for March 2014
1) Cornwall
2) Ottawa
3) Montreal
4) Toronto
5) Gatineau
6) Kingston
7) Brockville
8.) Missisauga
9) Calgary
10) Hamilton
11) Guelph
12) Prescott
13) London
14) Morrisburg
15) Vancouver
16) Petawawa
17) Arnprior
18) Clarence-Rockland
19) Waterloo
20) Peterborough
21) Windsor Shout out to Windsor!
22) Alexandria
23) Markham
24) Barrie
25) Hawekesbury
A note about Alexa.com rankings. Alexa is a great tool and abstract and we still like them, but like radio ratings they are extrapolations of numbers, in this case people with the Alexa tool bar which in Cornwall is not a great number. However if any group decides to get a bunch of people to load the tool bar and start playing funny beggars it’s not that hard to skew numbers.
We at CFN don’t play games like that. We caught one of our Seaway Radio guys doing that once and put a quick end to it. He’s now working with that media outlet that claims that more people are reading them (or any other media in Cornwall) than us. It’s a hollow claim and I sincerely doubt if you compared raw logs or Google Analytics numbers they’d be able to even pass the Seaway News and that says a lot!
You can’t fool the public; not all the time anyway. People talk. They know what they read and gossip about and eventually they can smell out the the truth whether they agree with it or not. To that media outlet bragging about beating us by gaming the system. That’s lame. If you have to cheat to win you’ve already lost.
We’re very proud of our organic and umblemished Alexa score and all of our other numbers. We are the only media outlet in Cornwall brave enough to put out raw numbers. Something we’d hope advertisers and organizations would consider before making ad buys.
In other good news I am moonlighting on my dear CFN viewers! Myself and Reg Coffey have opened The South Stormont News! It’s a brand new company based in beautiful Ingleside Ontario in the charming and friendly township of South Stormont, Ontario!
Www. Southstormontnews.com is now live and populating. It’s a change for me. It’s not Gonzo, but traditional style journalism and while here at CFN we cherish Views, our own and yours, over at SSN we don’t even do Editorials. It’s just straight news, but we’re having fun exploring areas that we never really focus on here at CFN.
So if you see less of me here you’ll know where to find me!
And yes, I am running for Mayor of Cornwall Ontario. No, it’s not a publicity stunt. No, I haven’t been convicted of any crimes as per gossip. Yes, we as a community have some daunting challenges. Yes, we can change things if we want to in October 2014.
Yes, I have put my shares in CFN up for sale. No buyers so far. Dial 855 444 1133 if you want to buy the most read newspaper in this region. I may even cut someone a good deal!
In the meanwhile I will clarify here that we have a policy of equal access for our local election. All ad deals for the election are open to all candidates. All services the same. And anyone running for mayor can have equal space if they feel I’ve written something outside of my election blog by emailing jamie@cornwallfreenews.com.
Speaking of which we have some awesome election deals for anyone running for any office anywhere in Ontario! For the municipal election any candidate that buys $500 or more in campaign advertising gets a free election blog which they can post to 24/7 until ballot time! Now that’s a deal!
To all of our viewers, those that love us, and those boycotter’s who this month clearly have proven that they aren’t quite clear on what that term means by actually helping to improve our numbers, thank you.
We aim for perfection. While we rarely succeed we always aim!
Jamie Gilcig – Editor Cornwall Free News & South Stormont News
Jamie I have my prayers going for you to win and you are the best and you have the best news in town. Too many are mighty jealous of all what you have accomplished in your short time in Cornwall whereas none of them can hold a candle to you not even a match. All the best to you and I sure do hope that you get in as mayor. Mighty big change is needed for sure.