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For some time there has been conversation about the need to look at the Quality and Engagement of audiences for media websites.

This article looks at one of the data items available via the Quantcast.com service, which segments your audience by loyalty. The free service can also identify which organisations and businesses are sending visitors to a website.

I look at the data for national newspapers, and also for this site and journalism.co.uk.

The Independent Newspaper is owned by the Irish Group Independent News and Media.

The Sunday Business Post reported pending staff cuts of up to 20%:

INM to cut London Independent staff by up to 40 per cent

Independent News & Media (INM) is targeting a 40 per cent cut in the workforce at its British Independent and Independent on Sunday newspaper titles as part of a plan to share production and back-up services with other newspapers.

The move could see the Independent reduce staff numbers by 100 to 200 people in the months ahead. INM made a reference to the plan in a trading update issued last Friday. It said the company was taking steps to ‘‘resize its cost base’’.

‘‘As part of that process, the British national division is in discussions with a number of other British national publishers on a shared services basis that is expected to deliver substantial efficiencies and is designed to create more efficient editorial work flows, while preserving the unique ethos of the Independent.”

It is understood that writing staff would not be affected by the plan but other functions, from production to advertising, could be included in any new shared arrangement.

That seems to be a little soon after the new editor Roger Alton was installed - barely six months.

Gah !

A popup survey form from the Independent with no “close” button visible.

Click on the image for a full screenshot.

I think that what has happened is that the layers are messed-up and the TV Licence advert is displaying over the missing “close” button.

It really should render properly in Firefox.

The Independent and the Mail are looking uncannily similar this morning.

Hmmm. Who wins the “We’re more tabloid than you” competition?

Independent … Mail … Independent … Mail … Independent … Mail …

Oh blow it. You decide.

(Click through on the title for a poll)

The Independent this morning, reporting the Mother of all Bailouts:

The teams: Who’s who

The Government:

Paul Myners: The former Marks & Spencer chairman and ex-director of GLG, one of the world’s biggest hedge funds, was a surprise appointment as the Treasury minister responsible for the City. Mr Myners, 60, was appointed to his new job on Friday.

Nick Macpherson: The permanent secretary to the Treasury, aged 49, was appointed in 2005 and is rated very highly by Gordon Brown. He gave £12,700 to Mr Brown’s Labour leadership campaign when Mr Brown was Chancellor.

That caught my eye - a top Civil Servant giving a donation to a leadership campaign in a political party? Doesn’t the Civil Service Code say something here? It does:

You must act in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of Ministers, while at the same time ensuring that you will be able to establish the same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future Government.

The Independent on Sunday has an interview with the Editor of Tribune.

Independent on Sunday, Today, page 87.

In its heyday, after the Labour election landslide of 1945, Tribune boasted a circulation of 40,000. A typical week might have seen Michael Foot denouncing Ernest Bevin’s pro-US foreign policy, or Barbara Castle arguing for decolonisation. Major political decisions within the Labour party would be thrashed out in its pages and the magazine became a training ground for left-leaning politicians and journalists. But since the Sixties the readership has dwindled to a mere 3,000, although the website, relaunched last year, draws a further 2,500 unique users per week.

So what happened? “The Left has always been bad at promoting itself through journalism – they just don’t put the investment in,” says Seddon. “This is a great lost opportunity for the unions. If they really want to get people thinking about the issues they’ve been discussing at conference, they need something like Tribune. What could be better? But it means putting some serious money into it.”

If the unions decide to adopt his strategy, they will have to continue stumping up the cash, although, relative to their revenues, the cost of keeping Tribune going is small. Producing 49 issues per year costs £270,000, or £22,000 per month. Advertising revenue used to account for about £7,500 per month, but that has fallen sharply since May, when Boris Johnson replaced Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London. Under Livingstone, the Greater London Authority and the Mayor’s office ran weekly ads in Tribune, and the loss of these two advertisers has left Tribune extraordinarily thin on ads: an August edition was entirely ad-free.

I have a few comments.