Although DrudgeReport.com again has the highest number of sessions per person by far, MSNBC now tops Yahoo! News on unique audience.

Nielsen Online provides these numbers to the Newspaper Association of America on a monthly basis, showing traffic and sessions per person* to the top 30 sites in the “News” category based on May 2008 numbers. It 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 these statistics, please visit www.netratings.com.)  

Newspapers

The Deseret Morning News, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, suddenly moved into the top 10 on the sessions per person list; the newspaper wasn’t listed last month. The newspaper instituted a redesign last year that included article commenting, a “most popular” list and several other features that have increased traffic to the site. However, The Deseret News was not able to explain the sudden jump this summer in Nielsen’s numbers, as they don’t reflect internal numbers.

Other newspaper moves on the list from last month to this month:

• Gannett’s Newspaper Division moved down just slightly, from 12^th place to 13^th.
• The Star Tribune moved up to 15^th place from 19^th.
• The New York Times moved 16^th place, down one spot.
• Media General moved down two spots to 18^th.

In the bottom 10 of this list: Hearst Newspapers Digital, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and washingtonpost.com moved up slightly; USAToday.com dropped slightly; and, Cox Newspapers moved off the list (from 28^th place last month).

Like last month, 10 of the top 30 in this list are newspapers or newspaper companies. (For more newspaper company metrics from Nielsen, click here.)

* Note on the following numbers: Auto-refresh features on Web sites (i.e. when a Web site page reloads automatically) does not increase the number of sessions. For more information about the metrics, go to www.netratings.com

 ^ 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.

Brand or Channel	Sessions per Person	Unique Audience ('000)
1. drudgereport.com	21.2	2,709
2. Daily Kos^	10.0	936
3. Fox News Digital Network	8.2	10,471
4. AOL News	8.2	22,081
5. CNN Digital Network	7.3	33,417
6. Yahoo! News	7.1	34,992
7. Deseret Morning News^	6.4	905
8. Google News	6.4	10,543
9. ksl.com^	5.9	982
10. Netscape	5.8	1,690
11. MSNBC Digital Network	5.8	37,644
12. Breitbart.com	5.7	1,980
13. Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division	5.1	12,405
14. Newsmax.com	5.1	2,711
15. Star Tribune	5.0	1,844
16. NYTimes.com	4.5	17,650
17. Townhall.com	4.4	1,025
18. Media General Newspapers	4.4	1,798
19. Real Clear Politics^	4.4	1,008
20. IB Websites	4.1	6,079
21. WorldNow	4.1	7,957
22. TWC News Websites^	4.1	1,114
23. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel	4.0	1,450
24. USAToday.com	3.9	9,626
25. wasingtonpost.com	3.8	9,062
26. Hearst Newspapers Digital	3.6	7,372
27. Gannett Broadcasting	3.6	4,806
28. Cox Newspapers	3.4	5,122
29. GTGI Network	3.4	1,631
30. worldnetdaily.com	3.4	1,209