Newspaper Website Readership Jumps 31%

Posted on October 4, 2006

Reuters reports on a new NAA study that found online newspaper readership jumped 31% in the first half of 2006

The study, released by the Newspaper Association of America, underscores the Internet's importance to papers beset by falling circulation and advertising revenue in their print editions.
The average number of unique visitors to online newspaper sites in the first half was more than 55.5 million a month, the study said. That compares with 42.2 million a year earlier.
Those numbers come from Nielsen//NetRatings, which tracks Web audience usage data.
"Newspaper Web sites have become a significant addition to the print product, and are driving large audience growth," said John Kimball, the association's chief marketing officer.
The number of page views at newspaper Web sites rose by about 52 percent in the first half, the association added.

Online newspaper readership should continue to climb as people abandon print newspapers for the Internet. You can see a list of the Top 100 newspaper websites in this PDF file from the NAA. Here are the ten top online newspapers.