Reconnect: Newspapers Reached 61% of Online Population

Newapapwes

Newspaper Web sites attracted a total 102.8 million unique visitors in September, representing 61% of the total U.S. adult Internet population, according to comScore figures cited by the Newspaper Association of America.

On an average day in September, American newspaper Web sites attracted about 20.3 million unique visitors, with the average visitor making 8.5 visits over the course of the month.

Altogether, visitors spent more than 3.3 billion minutes browsing newspaper Web sites, generating just over 4 billion page views in September.

The newspaper Web site audience compared favorably with audiences for other online news properties: 51% of the U.S. adult Internet population visited Yahoo! News Network, 22% visited CNN, and 27% visited MSNBC. Fifty-five percent of adults in the 25- to-34-year-old age bracket visited a newspaper Web site in September, compared to 52% for Yahoo! News Network, 22% for CNN, and 24% for MSNBC.

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What's more, the audience for newspaper Web sites tends to be more affluent than the population at large. For example, 25% of adult newspaper site visitors come from households earning $100,000 a year or more, compared to 21% of all adult Internet users; among adult Internet users in this income bracket, 73% visited a newspaper Web site in September.

This is one of the first public data sets released by the NAA based on measurements by comScore. Previously, the NAA used newspaper Web site audience data from Nielsen. The organization said it switched because comScore data provided a more complete picture of newspapers' online audience.

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