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Retired Superior Court Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Sr. dies at 90

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Annie’s Mailbox: Undisciplined children would be an unwelcome addition

WILKES-BARRE &#8212; The Times Leader has widened its readership lead over the Citizens&#8217; Voice.Nielsen Local, formerly known as Scarborough Research, said the Times Leader increased its daily readership from 74,654 in the last half of 2014 to 82,314 in the first half of 2015. The Voice&#8217;s readership dipped slightly during that period, falling from 78,776 to 78,770.While both newspapers grew their Sunday readership, the Times Leader&#8217;s readership increased by a more substantial amount. Nielsen data shows the Times Leader&#8217;s Sunday readership rose from 102,053 to 106,271. The Voice&#8217;s readership rose from 72,401 to 75,926.Nielsen released those numbers over the weekend.&#8220;This confirms what we already knew to be true: We have, by far, the largest audience in Luzerne County,&#8221; Times Leader Publisher Doug Olsson said.Digitally, the Times Leader maintains a sizable &#8212; and rapidly growing &#8212; lead over the Voice.Data from Nielsen and Google Analytics shows the Voice is struggling to find a digital audience. As the newspaper industry matures, its audience has been in transition as more readers access local journalism through their smartphones, tablets and computers.Nielsen said the Voice&#8217;s total reach over the course of a week &#8212; print and digital combined &#8212; fell from 134,688 people to 127,517. By comparison, the Times Leader reaches 158,454.The Voice, which is owned by Times-Shamrock Communications in Scranton, saw its digital footprint drop markedly between 2013 and 2015. According to Google Analytics numbers posted at timesshamrock.com, the Voice&#8217;s monthly page views fell from &#8220;more than 4 million&#8221; in 2013 to &#8220;more than 2.7 million&#8221; in 2015. That&#8217;s roughly half the audience of timesleader.com, which has become Northeastern Pennsylvania&#8217;s most-updated local news site.That is proof that &#8220;our digital strategy is working,&#8221; Olsson said.Efforts to reach Donald Farley, Times-Shamrock&#8217;s chief operating officer for print and digital, were not immediately successful on Sunday.More alarmingly for the Voice, its website&#8217;s traffic has fallen despite gaining more monthly unique visitors. According to Google Analytics, the Voice had 289,000 monthly unique visitors in 2013, when it had 4 million page views &#8212; meaning the average user accounted for 14 page views. Yet its 2015 numbers show that the Voice had 440,000 monthly unique visitors when its monthly page views declined to 2.7 million. That means the average user accounted for only six page views.The Voice is similarly struggling on Facebook, a crucial entry point for digital readers of local journalism. As of Sunday, the Voice had 15,959 likes while the Times Leader had 21,419 likes.While the Voice erroneously touts itself as &#8220;Luzerne County&#8217;s Largest &amp; Fastest-Growing Newspaper Audience&#8221; on its website &#8212; &#8220;The data shows this to be inaccurate,&#8221; Olsson said &#8212; its local ties have been weakened in recent years as key departments have been consolidated and moved to Lackawanna County.The Voice&#8217;s print edition is published out-of-county and then trucked into Wilkes-Barre each day; the Times Leader, by contrast, is printed in downtown Wilkes-Barre. Additionally, the Times Leader employs more people in Luzerne County than does the Voice, which has flooded the market with self-aggrandizing ads that distort the size of its audience.&#8220;It&#8217;s disappointing that a news organization that purports to inform readers honestly would blanket the market with unsubstantiated claims,&#8221; Olsson said. &#8220;But here at the Times Leader, we&#8217;ll continually strive for ways to provide our readers and advertisers with more value.&#8221;<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>Staff Report</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach the newsroom at 570-829-7242.</shirttailMeta></div>

Times Leader widens readership lead over Citizens’ Voice