• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 8, 2006

Yahoo is delivering a drubbing to its main competitors in the general news arena, according to a study released Monday by comScore Media Metrix.

Yahoo News was the undisputed leader in absolute terms--attracting almost 31.2 million unique visitors in June--and also in growth, showing 13 percent growth on a year-over-year basis. The next-biggest general news site, MSNBC, slid 14 percent from 27.33 million unique visitors in June 2005 to about 23.4 million in June 2006. AOL fell 2 percent, ending at about 20.4 million, and CNN fell 6 percent to end at about 19.9 million.

Overall, the Web's top 25 news properties, including single sites and networks of sites, attracted about 94 million unique visitors in June of 2006--a 4 percent increase over the same month in 2005, and a substantial share (54 percent) of the total 173 million people using the Internet. And while top properties like Yahoo and MSNBC still lead the Web in unique visitors, they face increasingly stiff competition from Web sites maintained by the nation's major regional newspapers, according to comScore.

For example, the network of Web sites operated by the Tribune Company--including the Web portals for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune--attracted about 8.45 million unique visitors this last June--an 11 percent jump over 2005. Considered alone, the LA Times site enjoyed 23 percent growth in unique visitors on a year-over-year basis, topping 2.6 million in June--and the Chicago Tribune site grew 11 percent to almost 1.9 million. Some of the Tribune's smaller regional papers grew even more, with the Orlando Sentinel site posting 47 percent growth and the Baltimore Sun site 34 percent.

For its part, Knight-Ridder saw certain of its regional papers enjoy a similar online boom, although the picture was mixed. One paper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, grew 56 percent to end at almost 600,000 unique visitors in June 2006. Another, the Monterey Herald, grew 53 percent to end at almost 200,000 unique visitors. But these gains were more than offset by big dips at smaller papers like the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, which plunged from 162,000 unique visitors in June 2005 to just 83,000 in 2006--a 49 percent drop. Overall the losses of readership at Knight-Ridder's smaller local papers contributed to the company's 8 percent decline in unique visitors.

The comScore study also contained revealing demographic data about visitors to general news sites, confirming the desirability of this audience for marketers. According to comScore, 58 percent of visitors live in households with annual incomes over $60,000. Visitors are also 16 percent more likely than the average Web denizen to earn over $100,000 a year.