The Demographics Of A Lede Al Reader

09 Aug 2021

The Demographics Of A Lede Al Reader

If you’re going to use AI to reach new readers of high school sports coverage, it’s probably a good idea to know a little about them. Our founding newsroom, Richland Source in Mansfield, Ohio, has collected a ton of data over the past few years. We did a deep dive into traffic patterns and referral paths back in March, 2021.

Let’s take that same data and look at audience demographics.

The Baselines

We’re looking at data from August 2020 – June 2021. 250,000 sessions and 203k users. 194k of all users were unique. More details can be found at the link above.

Who is a Lede AI reader?

The Lede AI reader is largely an adult male. Two-thirds of all readers were men and 51% of readers were between 25 – 54. Folks 55 and above comprised 36% of readers, while the 55-64 age segment was the largest block of readership overall at 23%.

He’s drawn to sports, fitness, politics, and is an avid news consumer. In fact, an interest in sports and news shows up all over affinity categories, in-market segments, and other categories as measured by Google analytics. He’s also interested in cars, money, and real estate.

Boing, boing, boing!

The Lede AI reader bounces out of the story he was reading more frequently than the general reader. 78% of readers bounce once they have read the story they came searching for. That rate is 25% higher than the rate for the average Richland Source reader. It’s understandable that this happens, given that greater than 50% of traffic is coming from organic search, but it’s important to consider nonetheless.

Is there a difference? Yes.

☝🏼That’s a lot of full-grown man testosterone in the room, for sure. That’s especially evident when compared with the general audience for Richland Source reporting across the same time period.

In fact, the gender demo for all reporting has a lot more women in it and is split nearly 50/50.

The audience share for younger adults (18-44) is also 15% higher when compared to the Lede AI audience. The audience shifts younger when all content is measured, but it’s still very grown up. 56% of the general audience is 35-54 years of age.

The interest of the general audience was much more wide-ranging, as well. Sports remains represented, but it’s farther down the list and less prominent overall.

What do the two groups have in common?

The Lede AI reader and the Richland Source reader largely use mobile devices to access reporting. About 80% of traffic is on mobile. About 50% of devices are Apple iPhones and the rest come from a variety of Samsung devices and other phones nobody remembers.

What’s the takeaway?

We know now that our reader for Lede AI high school sports results is probably a man. He’s grown, and probably has kids or grandkids. He loves sports, likes cars, and reads the news. How might that make hime more likely to engage with you in the future? A sports newsletter signup, perhaps? Ticket giveaways to live sporting events? A prompt in the footer that takes the reader to your human-powered feature coverage?

For advertisers or sponsors, consider this information a qualifying and closing tool. It’s powerful and may provide the necessary focus to guide your sales team to the right conversations with the sponsors who are most likely to convert.