Marketwatch Audience Plunge Continues Unabated

LBX : Marketwatch Audience Plunge Continues Unabated.

America, March 18, 2009 --Reporting live from the Internet by LBX.

Marketwatch.com, the online news and information site of Dow Jones and Company, a division of News Corp., the megalith publishing empire controlled by Rupert Murdoch, continued its sharp decline in "Daily Reach", a closely watched metric of audience and internet traffic.

The latest data showed that Marketwatch.com did not experience a "bump" from the matchup between Jim Kramer and Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. Other publications who covered the story, like Forbes, benefited.

Controversy over Marketwatch's Community continue, with the General Manager "JEB" pledging to unveil reforms and changes to the community later today to deal with widespread abuse of the community.

Whether these anticipated changes will be able to reverse the sharp decline in audience is an open question. If not reversed quickly, these trends will be followed by shortfalls in advertising revenues in the tight fisted management style of News Corp.

Both Marketwatch's news coverage and management of its Community is encountering increasing headwinds as its ranks of journalists are depleted and not replaced.

Marketwatch, however, disagrees. Commenting on Alexa.com's data last week, MW-Admin posted: "but it doesn't exactly jive with our internal numbers. In any event, while Community is a healthy addition to our overall traffic, it's our news that guides us."

Marketwatch.com is currently ranked 661 out of 1,500 top sites based on a 3 month average. A drop of 221in ranking in 3 months

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