Thanks for voting yesterday in my readership survey - just over 1200 of you were kind enough to take part! Now I know how my readership has changedoverthelastseventeenyears, but also how very similar it is. One thing that hasn't changed is that the typical diamond geezer reader is still a male from the London area, although he is now rather older than he used to be. Here are this year's results in a little more detail. n.b. In previous years the survey was on a weekday, lasted 24 hours and could be completed on the blog. This year the survey was at the weekend, lasted 36 hours and had to be completed off-site. The extra half day didn't make much difference, numbers-wise, but be aware that 2016 and 2021 totals may not be strictly comparable.
Male or female?
In the earliest surveys I had three male readers to every female but now it's eight. That's quite some divide, although at least the gender gap hasn't widened further since my last survey in 2016. I don't believe there are fewer females reading stuff on the internet, so either I've disillusioned many of my former female readers or else my choice of subject matter has proved more appealing to newly-arriving males. Sorry ladies, I'll try not to lose any more of you. Meanwhile I introduced an additional category this year and 19 of you duly declared that you were 'neither of the above'. I didn't dig deeper into which variant of non-binary you identify as, but 1.5% is certainly a non-trivial presence. Average reader: male
Age?
I'm rapidly haemorrhaging the younger audience too. Ten years ago almost a quarter of my readers were under 30 but that's now less than 10%. I suspect blogging's become a bit old school for the younger generation, many of whom prefer video content to daily thousand word essays. As for 30-somethings they've been the largest cohort in every previous survey but this time three other decades have leapfrogged past. Totals are fairly similar once you get above 30, but the 50-somethings just pipped the 60-somethings in a photo-finish by a mere two votes. Admittedly I'm two age groups higher than when I started the survey in 2004, and many of my readers will have aged along with me, but my audience is maturing faster than that. Ten years ago only 10% of my readers were over 60 but it's now 36%, which may be why some days the comments descend into a nostalgic wallow. I suspect I'm going to need an 80+ category next time. Average reader: 50-something (mode and median)
Where do you live? (pick one)
Half of my readership live in London, the city I write about the most (and pretty much exclusively at present), while one third are from the rest of England, most likely with a southeast bias. These proportions are surprisingly similar to those seen in previous surveys, with perhaps a slight bleed out of the capital into the Home Counties. But one in six of you are still from outside the UK, so it can't only be my reports from Beckton, Bow and Bishopsgate which keep you coming back. I guess in these travel-restricted times it doesn't really matter where you're from, so long as you don't mind reading about somewhere you're unlikely to be able to visit. Average reader: Londoner
How often do you read diamond geezer?
Here's an ongoing change - you're getting more regular in your visits. Back in 2004 only half of you came back every day, then ten years ago two thirds of you did, but now three quarters of you do. That's comforting because I do try very hard to post something for you to read every day, a frequency which is increasingly rare across what's left of the blogosphere. Statistically speaking it's unlikely that an occasional reader would have been here on the day of the survey, which is one reason the count is so low, but that proportion has also being tailing off of late. Alas hardly anybody lands on diamond geezer for the first time any more, mainly because Google is no longer so kind to minor blogs like mine, so a special hello to the two of you who claim they did. It's a bad sign for my future... if you don't already know this blog exists you're increasingly unlikely to discover it's here. Average reader: daily
When was your first visit to diamond geezer?
This graph celebrates the longevity of diamond geezer's readers. 12% of you claim to have been reading for at least fifteen years, and another 20% of you for more than ten (assuming your memory of that first visit is truly accurate). More and more of you have joined in as successive years have passed, with (I suspect) a significant number drawn here by the Olympics. The golden period appears to be 2010-2017, with a noticeable drop off in the four years since. That'll be my long-term existential crisis again, as hardly anyone ever gets redirected here from anywhere else any more. But thank you all for sticking around, however long it's been. Average reader: about 10 years
How do you usually view diamond geezer?
Five years ago two thirds of you were reading on a computer of some kind, which is how the blog was originally designed to be seen, but that's now dropped to nearer half. Just under 20% enjoy the convenience of a tablet, which should be wide enough to be able to read what I've written without major inconvenience. But almost 30% of you are now reading on your phone, which is five times as many as 2014, confirming the relentless rise of this ubiquitous medium. If my template was even vaguely mobile-friendly, I wonder if it'd be more. Many viewing issues can of course be solved via RSS, but I decided not to ask that question this year because I was trying to keep it simple. Average reader: via computer
Do you have your own blog?
The proportion of readers with their own blog drops noticeably every time I carry out this survey. Back in 2004 more than half of you claimed to be blogging, five years ago it was nearer one in seven, and now it's less than one in ten. A substantial number of you either never wrote a blog in the first place or have given up on producing original long form content in favour of merely reacting via social media to what others have written. But it's reassuring to know that blogging isn't quite dead yet, and that I still have competition from at least 100 of you. Average reader: not a blogger
