NEW YORK: More people are going to newspaper Web sites and in November the overall number of visitors to newspaper.coms hit an all-time high, according to numbers released by ratings firm Nielsen//NetRatings and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).
The report shows that more than 55 million people visited newspaper Web sites at least one time during the month of November, a 30% increase from the same period a year ago.
The data takes into account home and work Internet usage and the total represents de-duplicated visitors. The target sample -- Internet users at least 16 years of age -- had access from a non-shared PC at work and access from home. An individual who might read a national newspaper plus their local newspaper online is only counted once.
Also in November, more than one-third, or 36%, of all active Internet users visited a newspaper Web site.
"Newspaper Web site usage jumped during the third quarter of 2005, coinciding with national interests in news from the south's hurricane stricken coast," John Kimball, NAA senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said in a statement. "With the fourth quarter surpassing that number of visitors, it's clear that online newspapers are becoming a staple for readers that rely on the Web for information."
The unique audience count drops off a bit in December, with roughly 52.4 million people visiting an online newspaper at least once during the month.
And though October shows that 53.1 million people visited a newspaper Web site during that month, people spent more time on newspaper Web sites. In October, the average time spent per person during October was about 45 minutes, compared with roughly 40 minutes in November and December.
Unique page views for October was roughly 2.6 billion, compared with 2.4 billion in November and 2.3 billion in December.
Overall for Q4, the monthly unique audience averaged more than 53 million and 35% of all active Web users. Users' visits averaged 42 minutes a month during the quarter.
Jennifer Saba (jsaba@editorandpublisher.com) is associate editor for E&P.
