A recent release by Hitwise, sourced from information in the Hitwise U.S. service, concludes that trends in visits to News & Media sites are driven by major events. Significant spikes were seen in the past year during the 2004 elections, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the death of Terry Schiavo, the London bombings, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Additional specific conclusions and observations about News and Media include:
Top 15 News & Media Sites October 2005 | |||
| Market Share | Average Session Time | Percent of Traffic from Search |
The Weather Channel | 4.56% | 05:01 | 9.58% |
Yahoo! News | 4.41% | 05:11 | 3.88% |
CNN.com | 3.97% | 05:59 | 13.96% |
MSNBC | 3.06% | 06:24 | 9.48% |
Drudge Report | 1.93% | 07:10 | 8.21% |
New York Times | 1.79% | 08:42 | 12.10% |
Google News | 1.76% | 07:54 | 70.14% |
Yahoo! Weather | 1.69% | 02:10 | 6.19% |
BBC News | 1.33% | 06:58 | 19.02% |
USA Today | 1.27% | 03:38 | 12.56% |
The Washington Post | 1.17% | 07:42 | 18.22% |
Fox News | 1.12% | 06:30 | 11.28% |
BBC | 1.09% | 06:14 | 24.60% |
Weather Underground | 0.88% | 04:51 | 16.80% |
National Hurricane | 0.79% | 04:34 | 12.00% |
Source: Hitwise, November 2005 |
Learn more about Hitwise and this report here.