Newspaper websites grew 11 per cent year-over-year to 39.3 million unique visitors in October 2005, comprising 26 per cent of the active US Internet population, or one out of every four Internet users. The 11 per cent increase exceeds the growth of the active Internet universe as a whole, which rose three percent year-over-year, according to the latest Nielsen//NetRatings research.
This research follows on the heels of last week's news of the recent six-month decline in average weekday print circulation among America's top 20 largest newspapers. The average weekday circulation of newspapers in the US has fallen by 2.6 per cent in six months ending September. An analysis by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) found that for the six-month period ending September 30, 2005, the average daily circulation for all 789 newspapers reporting for comparable periods was 45,153,192, a decrease of 2.6 per cent (from 46,347,669) over the same period a year ago.
According to Nielsen//NetRatings Plan Fall 2005 release, among newspaper readers, 22 per cent have shifted their readership preferences from offline to online sources. The majority of readers, 71 per cent, still prefer print newspapers, while seven percent divide their time evenly between the two sources.
NYTimes.com was the top US online newspaper site, with 11.4 million unique visitors in October 2005. USATODAY.com and WashingtonPost.com took the No 2 and No 3 spots with 10.4 and 8.1 million unique visitors, respectively. LATimes and SFGate.com rounded out the top five with 3.9 million unique visitors each.
"The growth among newspaper websites demonstrates that these entities offer unique incentives to visitors," said Gerry Davison, senior media analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Most, if not all of the top newspaper sites offer interactivity such as blogs, podcasts and streaming video/audio. These interactive features, combined with Internet users' thirst for up-to-date information, make newspaper websites an increasingly appealing choice for news."
More men than women read online newspapers; they constituted 56 per cent of newspaper site readership in October, compared to women who made up 44 per cent of online readers. People with an income between $100,000 and $150,000 and those with a bachelor's or postgraduate degree were also likely to visit online newspapers, comprising 21 per cent and 52 per cent of visitors, respectively.
