Online newspapers in the US continue to thrive, with news websites attracting an average of 53.6 million visitors a month during the fourth quarter of 2005, enjoying a rise of 30% from 41.1 million in Q4 2004.
According to the latest figures from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), users are spending more time on the websites. Users averaged 42 minutes a month in Q4, up 16% from 37 minutes in the fourth quarter of 2004.
Rob Runett, director of electronic media communications at the NAA, proposed that readership rose because people were particularly interested in last year’s news, which included the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina. He also claimed that users were growing increasingly comfortable consuming news online.
November was found to be the industry’s best month to date, with more than 55 million people visiting online news sites, up 30% compared to the same period in 2004.
As online readership increases, so does internet newspaper advertising. The NAA claims that by the third quarter of 2005 online newspapers ads reached almost $519 million, marking a 27% rise over Q3 2004.
New data from Nielsen//NetRatings confirms the rise in online newspaper websites popularity, with figures showing 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 (see Newspaper Websites Increase In Use).
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, 39.3 million visitors logged on to newspaper websites in the US in October, representing one-quarter of all active internet users (see Online Newspaper Industry Forecast To Enjoy Strong Gains).
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.
Online news is now seen as commonplace, and is increasingly being used as an mainstream 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).
The success of online newspapers is not being mirrored in the print world, with Initiative Media projecting the UK press market as a whole to remain static in 2006, with a downward trend in sales of national newspapers resulting in advertisers cutting adspend by 1.2% (see UK Adspend To Rise By 3.7% In 2006).
These forecasts echo those of OPera Media, with the agency expecting 2006 to be a turbulent year for national newspapers in the UK (see UK Adspend To Hit £15 Billion By 2010).
OPera predicts sales for the quality papers to rise by between 2% and 3% during 2006, but expects mid-market papers The Express and Daily Mail to suffer a 2% to 3% decline, while red top papers will be hit hardest with a 3.5% decline in circulation across the year.
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