Check out the new NAA Community!
NAA.org has introduced a new opportunity to network and interact with your industry colleagues and NAA experts, share best practices and keep your fingers on the pulse of important industry issues. The NAA Community is a tool designed to make your online community experience easy, with exciting features including blogs, photo galleries, file sharing, upgraded e-forums, and more. Please also note that the Digital Edge blog has now moved to NAA Community.

Get started on NAA Community today!

Search Blog

<<  July 2009  >>

SMTWTFS
1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031

Categories

ACAP (1) RSS

Advertising (20) RSS

AlwaysOn (6) RSS

Annual Convention (5) RSS

Awards (26) RSS

Blogs (46) RSS

Capital Conference 2008 (4) RSS

Citizen Journalism (39) RSS

Copyrights (8) RSS

Data (26) RSS

Directories (2) RSS

Economics (1) RSS

Increasing Audience (77) RSS

Innovation (9) RSS

Journalism That Matters (5) RSS

jtmdc07 (5) RSS

Launches (26) RSS

Local Search (25) RSS

Maps (2) RSS

Marketing Conference (10) RSS

Media Partnerships (26) RSS

Mobile Devices (30) RSS

NAA Events (3) RSS

NAA reports (49) RSS

New Media (99) RSS

News Aggregators (10) RSS

newstools2008 (2) RSS

ONA 2008 (2) RSS

ona2007 (10) RSS

Online Ideas Gallery (1) RSS

Online Video (35) RSS

Politics and Elections (19) RSS

Print (24) RSS

quote-unquote (2) RSS

Social Media (10) RSS

Staffing (16) RSS

Strategic Imperatives (23) RSS

surveys (7) RSS

Television (7) RSS

UGC (9) RSS

Wikis (4) RSS

May 19, 2008

Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again

Newspaper Web sites attracted more than 66.4 million unique visitors on average (40.7 percent of all Internet users) in the first quarter of 2008, a record number that represents a 12.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago, according to a custom analysis provided by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America.

In addition, newspaper Web site visitors generated an average of 3.1 billion page views per month throughout the quarter, compared with slightly less than three billion during the same period last year.  The first quarter unique visitor and page view figures are the highest for any quarter since NAA began tracking these numbers in 2004 and the largest increase since the third quarter of 2006. More information about these numbers is available through the NAA Press Center.

April traffic to newspaper Web sites was down slightly since last quarter, but newspaper Web sites still posted gains from a year ago.

Nielsen Online provides these numbers to the Newspaper Association of America on a monthly basis. This data shows the monthly traffic and other data for newspaper-based Web sites for April 2008:
  • 64,341,029 – the monthly unique audience for newspaper sites, an increase of 9.6 percent (year over year)
  • 39 percent – active reach, an increase of 4.6 percent (year over year)
  • 2.85+ billion – total page views on newspaper sites, an increase of 3.3 percent (year over year)
  • 44.32 – page views per person
  • 8.15 – visits per person
The data below, also from Nielsen Online, shows the top 30 sites in the “News” category based on April 2008 traffic. This data takes into account U.S. home and work Internet usage, and it shows both unique visitors to each brand or channel and sessions per person. For more information about the sourcing of this data, please visit www.netratings.com.  
 
 
Although DrudgeReport.com has the highest number of sessions per person by far; Yahoo! News ranks highest in unique audience, followed closely by CNN Digital Network and MSNBC Digital Network.
Note that nine of the top 30 belong to newspaper companies!
 
NetRatings: Top 30 Online Current Events & Global News Destinations, ranked by Sessions per Person
 
Brand or channel; sessions per person; unique audience (000)
1.  drudgereport.com; 18.0; 3,322
2.  Fox News Digital Network; 8.5; 10,871
3.  Daily Kos^; 8.4; 1,034
4.  CNN Digital Network; 8.0; 33,423
5.  AOL News; 7.8; 23,134
6.  Yahoo! News; 7.1; 34,437
7.  MSNBC Digital Network; 6.2; 32,382
8.  Real Clear Politics; 6.1; 927
9.  Star Tribune; 6.0; 1,423
10. NYTimes.com; 5.4; 17,911
11. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; 5.3; 1,049
12. Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division; 5.3; 13,172
13. Worldnetdaily.com^; 5.3; 673
14. Google News; 5.2; 10,782
15. Zwire^; 4.8; 1,078
16. Netscape; 4.5; 2,291
17. One News Now^; 4.5; 736
18. Media General Newspapers; 4.2; 1,351
19. ksl.com^; 4.2; 760
20. IB Web Sites; 4.1; 6,077
21. WorldNow; 3.9; 7.741
22. NewsMax.com; 3.9; 2,982
23. Townhall.com; 3.9; 1,406
24. St. Louis Post Dispatch^; 3.8; 1,264
25. Breitbart.com; 3.8; 2,462
26. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 3.7; 1,164
27. GTGI Network^; 3.7; 1,777
28. theatlantic.com; 3.5; 973
29. USAToday.com; 3.4; 10,729
30. MediaNews Group Newspapers; 3.3; 6.442
 
 ^ Indicates Home and Work audience duplication projections did not meet minimum sample size standards. Combined home and work audience estimates for these sites may exhibit increased variability month-to-month as a result.
 
Note on the above numbers: Auto-refresh features on Web sites (i.e. when a Web site page reloads automatically) does not increase the number of sessions.


Posted by Beth Lawton at 11:00 AM | PermaLink | 23 comments

Subscription Options

You are not logged in, so your subscription status for this entry is unknown. You can login here.

Comments

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
No surprise with Drudge being the most used site out there again. The campaign coverage was actually fair, and he has been staying away from gossip, to his credit.
Posted by Mike Royson on May 21, 2008 at 7:07 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
interesting page stats
Posted by online@detnews.com on May 21, 2008 at 9:11 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
I think the main reason newspapers did so well is because of Drudge. Drudge links to the stories on their sites so in essences directs people to their site raising the numbers for them.
Posted by Scott B on May 21, 2008 at 9:28 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
The New York Times site is surprisingly low and propped up by the many links with Drudge, which is ironic in view of the Times' institutional leftist bias and Drudge's relative objectivity. This is a further indication of the steep decline of the Times under "Pinch" - every action he has taken has meant that disaster for the formerly influential New York Times. Such a man does not deserve to be in charge of such a formerly great instituion.
Posted by bdavis on May 21, 2008 at 9:45 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
No surprise there - Drudge pads his numbers by having a ridiculously fast refresh rate. Those count as page loads. I bet if another site jumps ahead of him he'll lower the refresh time even more, but I have to give him credit for finding creative ways to sex up his numbers.
Posted by Jason in TX on May 21, 2008 at 9:55 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
The refresh rate on the drudge report contributes little to his overall hits. If the refresh rate factors into a hit then it means that someone has left the page open in order to get fast updates.
Posted by CharlieS on May 21, 2008 at 10:20 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
Someone please explain these numbers to me. There's no way more people go to Daily Kos or Foxnews.com than cnn.com or msnbc.com. And a paper in Minneapolis has a higher ranking than the New York Times or USA Today?
Posted by WillDeeks on May 21, 2008 at 10:21 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
Will, this is based on number of sessions per person, which means, basically, the number of times a person opens their browser and goes to a site. It does not count the number of times a page refreshes (see the note at the bottom of the blog post). What it means is that people are visiting the site several, separate times each day. The lesson here, I think, is that people visit sites often when they know the site posts new information frequently. Hope that helps!
Posted by Beth Lawton, NAA on May 21, 2008 at 10:30 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
WillDeeks- there's no reason to not believe that foxnews.com is near the top. The TV station alone garners more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined on average, though cnn.com typically has more market share online. I agree on dailykos and the Star Tribune figures- those indeed make no sense.
Posted by YuppieHorror.com on May 21, 2008 at 10:31 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
I seldom, if ever go directly to a newspaper site, except for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I'm a Steeler fan living in CA. The Drudge report is my second stop on the internet every day, right after Fox News. The only time I go to other newspaper sites is from Drudge. The same for CNN or MSNBC, I try to avoid them, like so many other people!
Posted by EdB on May 21, 2008 at 11:31 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
I don't buy Drudge #1 because of his refresh rate and the fact people have to keep coming BACK to his site to click on links to other stories. No wonder his unique audience is so low but views so high.

Although I read Drudge's site every day, I'll be the last to say that it's a journalism site. It's a blog linking to other news sites. No real reporting.
Posted by Crabby on May 21, 2008 at 11:47 AM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
Me and several people I know get the vast majority of their news from Drudge...I leave it up all day and seldom go to other news sites (with the exception of Drudge's links of course), almost every talk radio show contstantly has it up, other news sites write stories about the drudgereport, it's layout it perfect and contains minimal bs- like him or not, he's the best of the best!
Posted by Ben on May 21, 2008 at 12:17 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
And WillDeeks- CNN and MSNBC are both synonymous with the word "Worthless" and shouldn't be viewed except to see how twisted the truth can become, get with the program!!!!
Posted by Ben on May 21, 2008 at 12:20 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
All you anti-druge people need to learn how to read before you post. "Auto-refresh features on Web sites (i.e. when a Web site page reloads automatically) does not increase the number of sessions." This is clearly displayed at the bottom of the page and yet you complain that his numbers are inflated. I love all the anti-druge people that use his site daily. Not enough bias for you.
Posted by Brewbuddy on May 21, 2008 at 1:35 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
Go Drudge. He's been my #1 stop for 2 years now, followed only by FoxNews.com. I find the Drudge Report and Fox News the only two news site online worth visiting- despite the fact that Matt Drudge writes no stories himself. The detractors whining here about page refreshing need to take a basic lesson in web stats: go look up the definition of a user session.
Posted by Ian on May 21, 2008 at 2:07 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
The lesson here is that American's have way too much free time at work, shorten the work day, and watch these numbers fall. Keep up the good work though Drudge, I still can't stop form clicking on the "National Enquire-esk" cow/human cloning stories.
Posted by Colin on May 21, 2008 at 4:42 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
I constantly check the Drudge Report. I wish he'd go back on television or radio. Enjoyed him on both in the past.
Posted by News Junkie on May 21, 2008 at 5:34 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
Is Drudge gay? Lots of postings on the internet about that.
Posted by Jeff on May 21, 2008 at 5:56 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
Drudge - gay... yes that's the rumor. Truth? dunno, don't care. Is proof Conservatives don't measure a man by his sexual preference... it's just another talking point from DemocRATS.
Posted by Winston on May 21, 2008 at 6:38 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
Great headline that Newspapers have a strong showing on the web. The fact that the highest rating newspaper site receives only a third of what Drudge draws just underscores the bias of anything put out by a newspaper in print, on the web, or as your puppy's latrine.
Posted by Marcy on May 21, 2008 at 7:06 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
I can't believe some of the comments on this site. Do you actually even look at Drudge? (Without a doubt it is the top site in terms of hits.) But saying Drudge is "fair" or that he "stays away from gossip" is just ridiculous. And let me correct another commenter: Drudge is not pushing up the numbers on news sites to the point they are are in the Top 30. Give me a break. Of course, his links add numbers but not that substantially. he doesn't link to one site that often -- other than Breitbart maybe. He certainly doesn't do a bucnh of links to the NYT.
Posted by David on May 21, 2008 at 7:29 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
"what Drudge draws just underscores the bias of anything put out by a newspaper in print, on the web, or as your puppy's latrine." Why do people always trash newspapers? It's such an interesting notion. WHAT DO YOU MORONS THINK DRUDGE LINKS TO? Newspapers. Idiots.
Posted by David on May 21, 2008 at 7:32 PM

Re: Newspapers Have Strong Showing, Drudge Tops Nielsen List Again
I've got nothing against Drudge Report. I look at it nearly everyday. But I have to agree with David. He links to newspaper sites, online news sites like Politico, Huff. Report, etc. He rarely does any reporting himself -- if any. He shapes the talking points for the day through his links.
Posted by Jamie Herzberg on May 21, 2008 at 7:38 PM

Post a Comment
Commenting has been disabled for this entry.