There are many outstanding online-only publications that publish movie reviews. Some are entertainment Web sites, some are arts and culture Web sites, some are news Web sites, and some are humor Web sites. The key issue for Web sites that cover movie reviews is: Does the Web site have significant traffic, and does the traffic see and read the movie reviews?

Consider an example. A Web site generates 6 million unique visitors per month. That is strong traffic. 6 million unique visitors per month means 200,000 unique visitors per day. The question is how many of them will click on a movie review? The numbers appear to be pretty small – less than 10 percent. For some Web sites, this may be a generous estimate. 10 percent is less than 20,000 readers per day. Compare this with a medium size newspaper, which has about 500,000 readers on an average Monday through Saturday. Research suggests that on a Friday, when most movie reviews are printed, between a third and a half of readers look at the entertainment section. Because of the nature of the printed medium, that means that roughly 166,000 to 250,000 readers are likely to see the review, including the headline and the picture, and some will read the text. It seems for a medium size newspaper, a movie review has a chance at being seen or read by between 166,000 and 250,000 readers, while for a successful Web site, a review has a chance at being clicked on and seen or read by around 20,000.

It is true that a review on a Web site remains available for more than one day and additional readership accumulates over time, but that is true for print and broadcast reviews as well, since those reviews are online too.

Basically the leading newspapers and magazines are industry-leaders online as well as in print. Newspapers in the top 25 markets alone attract over 150 million unique visitors per month to their sites and are included in the list of top Web sites of any kind. Movie critics are the most influential online even though they may be known best in newspapers and magazines or on television or radio. For these reasons, it is essential that each Web site’s online traffic be taken into consideration.

In sum, covering movie reviews online is extremely important. The question is for online publicaitons, do they have an audience on the level of the leading print publications and television and radio programs? It’s worth continuing to research this issue to look for data to support publications online.