According to comScore (via The Edge), the average daily readership for local news portal in March this year was about 2.8 million, 10% of our population. Many believe that online news portal has hit mainstream since the political tsunami in last March. Citizens started to flock into these sites looking for (almost) real time and unfiltered updates. Imagine how popular Twitter would have been in Malaysia then?

Some of those sites (without mass circulations) are still maintaining lot of their audience since then. Malaysiakini's position as no.1 is both surprising and impressive considering that it is on paid-subscription model (for English content).

English Media

1. Malaysiakini (No. 14 in Malaysia by Alexa)
2. The Star Online (No. 13)
3. Malaysia-Today.net (No. 38)
?. The Malaysian Insider (No. 45)
4. The New Straits Times Online (No. 91)
5. The Edge Malaysia (No. 255)

Malay Media

1. Utusan Malaysia Online (No. 23 in Malaysia by Alexa)
2. Berita Harian Online (No. 35)
3. myMetro (No. 36)

Chinese Media

1. ChinaPress dotCom (No. 61 in Malaysia by Alexa)
2. Nanyang.com (No. 476)
3. Sinchew-i (No. 97)
?. Merdeka Review (No. 209)

comScore's numbers are as of March while Alexa's readings are taken in June. Again, the metrics are by no means accurate but serve as a reference to the sites popularity.

It is probably a close call between Malaysiakini and The Star Online for the top position in English media. A bigger dispute though, is the exclusion of The Malaysian Insider from comScore's measurement, which could have rank no.4 in the English category.

I am surprised by the gossip-driven ChinaPress who tops the Chinese chart. On another hand, Nanyang.com's position above Sinchew-i and even Merdeka Review is very much debated.

Next: An Observation on Newsprint Circulation