• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, February 6, 2009

Nielsen Online reports a 16 percent year-over-year increase in unique visitors to the top 10 newspaper Web sites, growing from 34.6 million unique visitors in December 2007 to 40.1 million in December 2008.

The number one online newspaper destination in December 2008, with 18.2 million unique visitors, was the NYTimes.com.. USATODAY.com and washingtonpost.com took the No. 2 and No. 3 spots. 

Top 10 Newspaper Web Sites (Dec 2008 vs Dec 2007 U.S., Home and Work)
Rank	Site	Unique Audience (000) Dec-07 UA	Unique Audience (000) Dec-07 UA	Percent Change
	Top 10 Online Newspapers	34,602	40,093	16%
1.	NYTimes.com	17,177	18,187	6
2.	USATODAY.com	9,939	11,420	15
3.	washingtonpost.com	8,478	9,470	12
4.	LA Times	4,607	7,963	73
5.	Wall Street Journal Online	5,409	7,235	34
6.	Daily News Online Edition	2,956	5,883	99
7.	Chicago Tribune	3,891	5,235	35
8.	New York Post	2,851	4,557	60
9.	Boston.com	4,364	4,086	-6
10.	SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle	2,785	3,503	26
Source: Nielsen Online, January 2009

 Chuck Schilling, Research Director, agency & media, Nielsen Online, said "Nine of the top 10 newspaper Web sites experienced positive year-over-year growth," driven, in part, by the holiday season, the weakened economic news, and political reporting.

Not only are more people visiting newspaper Web sites, but they are also visiting these sites more often than they were a year ago, says the study. The number of total visits to the top 10 newspaper sites increased 27% year-over-year, growing from 199.6 million in December 2007 to 252.7 million in December 2008.

 "Despite the current troubles for the traditional newspaper industry, people are visiting newspaper sites more and more often to stay on top of current events," said Schilling.

 Nielsen Online also reported December 2008 data for the Top Parent Companies/Divisions and Top Web Brands. The parent level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single company or division. 

Top 10 Parent Companies/Divisions for December 2008 (U.S., Home and Work)
Rank	Parent	Unique Audience (000	Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1	Google	133,854	2:00:12
2.	Microsoft	125,826	2:24:00
3.	Yahoo!	117,821	3:11:49
4.	AOL LLC	86,080	3:41:02
5.	News Corp. Online	78,081	1:29:19
6.	eBay	68,272	1:38:32
7.	Amazon	67,362	0:36:39
8.	InterActiveCorp	63,493	0:19:08
9.	Apple Computer	56,881	1:25:49
10.	Facebook	55,217	2:07:58
Source: Nielsen Online, January 2009

 Example: The data indicates that 55.2 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Facebook-owned sites or launched a Facebook-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 2 hours, 7 minutes and 58 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.

The brand level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content.

Top 10 Web Brands for December 2008 (U.S., Home and Work)
Rank	Brand	Unique Audience (000)	Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1.	Google	126,199	1:25:10
2.	Yahoo!	116,906	3:12:05
3.	MSN/Windows Live	103,229	2:07:49
4.	Microsoft	96,711	0:50:37
5.	AOL Media Network	86,080	3:41:02
6.	YouTube	80,704	0:54:37
7.	Fox Interactive Media	67,959	1:30:56
8.	Amazon	61,084	0:34:31
9.	eBay	57,434	1:39:39
10.	Apple	56,881	1:25:49
Source: Nielsen Online, January 2009

 

Average U.S. Internet Usage, Combined Home & Work, (Month of December 2008)
Sessions/Visits per Person	59
Domains Visited per Person	108
Web Pages per Person	2,353
Duration of a Web Page Viewed	0:00:55
PC Time per Person	68:23:22
Active Digital Media Universe	166,120,474
Current Digital Media Universe Estimate	225,748,755
Source: Nielsen Online, January 2009

For more information, please visit Nielsen-Online here.