• by Ross Fadner , March 25, 2004

People who regularly visit newspaper-produced Web sites are younger, better educated and more likely to be employed than general Internet users, says a recent consumer study conducted for the Newspaper Association of America by MORI Research of Minneapolis. These visitors are also affluent and more likely to shop for and buy products online.

According to the study, the mean age of online newspaper users is 38, compared with 45 for all Web users. Forty-four percent of online newspaper users are between 18 and 34. Fifty-four percent of visitors to newspaper Web sites have college degrees, compared with 45 percent of general Web users. Eighty-eight percent of newspaper Web site users are employed, compared with 73 percent for all Web users. Eighty-four percent recently researched a purchase online, versus 59 percent for general Web users. Eighty-two percent recently made a purchase online, compared with 52 percent for the overall online universe.

The study results show that online newspaper users spend nearly double the amount of time online in a given week compared with the Internet population as a whole. They also are three times as likely to be online during the workday, twice as likely to have broadband access at work and 43 percent more likely to have broadband at home. They tend to be frequent visitors to newspaper sites with 87 percent visiting three to four times per week or more, including 38 percent who visit several times a day.