Online newspaper websites are increasing in popularity, with new data from Nielsen//NetRatings showing a growth of 11% in unique visitors between October 2004 and October 2005, a rate faster than the 3% growth of active users on the entire internet.
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, 39.3 million visitors logged onto newspaper websites in the US in October, representing one-quarter of all active internet users.
Despite these numbers however, newspaper readers are still found to prefer print versions over online, with 70% of readers primarily reading print, 22% mainly using internet versions and 7% looking at both equally.
The New York Times is shown to be the leading online newspaper site, with a unique audience of over 11.4 million in October 2005 and a growth rate of 15% since last October, while the Washington Post showed an increase of 28%.
The online newspaper industry is growing in strength, and is forecast to increase its presence in the market, with previous research from eMarketer, predicting revenues to increase to $2.26 billion in 2008, up from $1.03 billion in 2004 (see Online Newspaper Industry Forecast To Enjoy Strong Gains).
Online news is now seen as commonplace, and is increasingly being used as an information source. A survey earlier in the year by Merrill Brown for the Carnegie Corporation revealed that the US population is shifting to the internet as their primary source of news (see Internet Becoming Primary News Source In US).
Findings from Jupiter Research confirms this migration to the internet, showing that, in 2005, some 26% of adults claim to prefer to get their news online, compared to just under 20% in 2001.
However, despite figures indicating online newspapers’ strength, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) recently revealed that global newspaper sales enjoyed an overall rise of 2% in circulation growth in 2004 and a 5% increase in advertising growth (see Global Newspaper Sales Up 2% In 2004).
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