Upswing: Newspapers' Online Traffic Doubles 2004-2009

NYTimes/LATimes

The newspaper business has had a difficult time raising online revenues, recently considering charging for content through paid subscriptions or "micropayments." But newspapers should by all rights be able to devise some kind of remunerative online publishing strategy, considering the spectacular growth in online audiences over just the last five years.

Between the first half of 2004 and the first half of 2009, their unique audience has almost doubled from a monthly average of 41,147,206 to 71,831,867, according to Nielsen Online figures cited by the Newspaper Association of America.

Newspaper Web Traffic

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In terms of traffic, newspaper Web sites have more than doubled over the same period, from a total 9,669,825,300 page views in the first half of 2004 to 20,375,090,566 page views in the first half of this year. In terms of active reach, altogether, newspaper Web sites jumped from 27.1% of all U.S. Internet users in the first six months of 2004 to 41.8% of all Internet users in the first six months of 2009.

Not only have the number of individuals who visit newspaper Web sites increased, but individual usage has increased as well -- from 39.2 page views per person in 2004 to 47.2 page views per person this year, a jump of about 20%. The average time spent on newspaper Web sites grew from about 35 minutes and 40 seconds per month in the first half of 2004 to about 41 minutes and 30 seconds per month in the first half of 2009, an increase of about 16%.

These figures show that newspapers' online audience has grown faster than the U.S. Internet population at large. The total number of Internet users grew from 204.3 million in the first half of 2004 to 227.6 million in the first half of 2009, an increase of 11.4%.

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