the.com/readership
The audience a writer swears is bigger than the comment section suggests.
means The total body of people who read a particular publication, writer, or piece of writing.
from A straightforward 19th-century build: 'reader' plus the suffix '-ship,' which signals a state, condition, or collective body (same pattern as 'membership' or 'fellowship'). It emerged alongside 'authorship' as print culture grew hungry for ways to measure and discuss audiences, newspapers, and magazines.
- measured in
- estimated reach, not actual attention
- editors love
- citing it to justify ad rates
- peak irony
- most never finish the article about it
- true test
- who forwards it, not who clicks it