US Newspaper Sites Get Over 58 Million Hits In September

Online newspaper sites in the States gained more that 58 million hits in September, according to a Q3 Nielsen/NetRatings report conducted for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

This was the highest amount of unique visitors for paper sites ever, the industry group said; with on average over 56.9 million people visiting newspaper sites each month in the third quarter 2006, up almost 24% year on year for the same period.

The report attributers the continued rise in web readership to new site features such as video and podcasts. Unique visitors to paper sites averaged more than 55.5 million per month during the first six months of the year, up almost a third from the 42.4 million during the first half of last year.

Newspaper sites generated 2.7 billion page views in Q3, and visitors spent more than 41.5 minutes each month on the sites, according to the report. During that period last year, visitors viewed around 1.9 billion paper pages, spending 40.4 minutes on the sites on average monthly.

Approximately 54.7 million unique users viewed paper sites in July of this year, up from 43 million in July 2005. Nearly 58 million visited the sites in August, compared with almost 47.5 million in August of last year. The report findings represent at-home and at-work Web users.

However, the increased readership may not translate to a revenue rise for newspaper publishers. A recent Merrill Lynch report predicted industry profit in the US could remain flat for years because online newspaper ad revenues will not comprise half of all newspaper revenues for at least twenty years. The company also expected a 2 percent drop in newspaper ad revenue in the fourth quarter.

Newspaper Association Of America: www.naa.org/