• by February 29, 2004

Advance online ticket sales helped Mel Gibson's flick "The Passion of the Christ" rake in $26.5 million on its opening day. Consumers flocked to online movie and ticketing sites during the week ending February 22 to purchase advance tickets for the movie.

Fandango.com experienced a 79 percent increase in traffic from 380,000 to 680,000 unique visitors during the week ending February 22, while traffic to MovieTickets.com increased 32 percent to 400,000 visitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Yahoo! Movies enjoyed a 28 percent increase in traffic, and MSN Entertainment saw a 17 percent spike. Moviefone attracted 1.3 million unique visitors, a 10 percent week-over-week increase.

"Movie ticketing sites often spike in traffic prior to releases for big-budget films, as fans purchase tickets in advance online," said Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. Group ticket sales represented a large percentage of advance ticket sales for "The Passion."

Other notable online traffic spikes observed by Nielsen//NetRatings for the week ending Feb. 22:

* The premiere of "Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire" helped spike traffic to ABC Primetime by 75 percent, to 691,000 unique visitors. Thirty-one percent of the site's audience surfed the "Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire" page, where visitors viewed game rules and played an online version of the game.

*The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper's Web site SFGate.com enjoyed a 45 percent increase in traffic as interest in same-sex marriages grabbed the Chronicle's headlines. SFGate.com attracted 618,000 unique visitors, compared to 426,000 during the previous week.