• by Masha Geller , July 9, 2002

I’ve got good news for those of you advertising on newspaper sites. According to comScore’s latest findings, the average visitor to 12 of the 13 measured newspaper sites spends significantly more online than both the average Web user and the typical visitor to news and information sites.

Topping the list is Knight Ridder's bayarea.com, followed by newsday.com and nypost.com. Rounding out the top ten are accessatlanta.com, sfgate.com, nydailynews.com, washingtonpost.com, suntimes.com, latimes.com, chicagotribune.com.

comScore Media Metrix' Buying Power Index (BPI) measures the total dollars spent online (across all sites) by the average member of a site's audience, indexed to the total online dollars spent by the average Internet user.

Want more good news? comScore also reported that the audiences of major newspaper sites grew much faster over the past 6 months than the markets' total Internet user base in 7 of the 10 largest U.S. Designated Market Areas (DMA®).

The analysis reveals disproportionately strong growth in unique visitors for newspapers in their local DMAs. For example, in New York -- the nation's largest DMA -- unique visitors to the New York Daily News domain increased 23%, while unique Internet users for the total New York DMA grew only 3% during the same six-month period. Similarly, unique visitors to Chicago's suntimes.com increased 38% while the total Internet-using population in that city grew only 3% over the same period.

Of course, the growth of the total web user base may have something to do with the fact that 57% of white, 46% of African American and 44% of Hispanic households in the U.S. are already online, according to the latest data from Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research. Nevertheless, as comScore Media Metrix division president Peter Daboll said, "It's clear that online newspaper sites are rapidly gaining readers -- generally at the expense of print readership."