Radio was the top-gaining Web category in June--up 34% from May to 48.9 million unique monthly visitors, according to comScore MediaMetrix's latest rankings and analysis of U.S. online activity.
Yahoo Music led the growth in the category with more than 25 million visitors--up 11%--while AOL Radio rose 11% to 3.2 million visitors, and Disney Music 16% to 1.1. million visitors.
In more good news for Yahoo, it once again led comScore's list as top U.S. online property, with 133 million unique visitors. However, in the ad network rankings, Yahoo moved down from second to
third place, falling slightly to flip places with ValueClick, with both reaching 73% of all Americans online.
AOL's Advertising.com was the top ad network for the 38th straight month--reaching
157.6 million unique visitors, or 88% of the U.S. online audience. Expedia.com re-entered the top 50 ad rankings for the first time in several months, at number 48--reaching 11% of the audience.
Following radio in June's list of top-gaining categories were gay/lesbian sites and online gambling. comScore attributed interest in June's Pride Month to a 23% rise in gay/lesbian visits--to 3
million uniques, with PlanetOut leading the category growth. A 13% increase in the online gambling category, to 12.4 million unique visitors, was attributed to the then-approaching 2007 World Series
of Poker, with PokerStars as the category growth leader.
With schools letting our for summer, the younger-skewing gaming information and online gaming categories rose 9% and 8% respectively, to
42.8 million and 64 million uniques each. IGN Entertainment--up 17% to 10.4 million visitors--led the gaming information growth, with Disney Games, up 38% to 6.3 million, grabbing those honors for
game-playing sites.
Top-gaining individual properties in June were led by World Wrestling Entertainment, which spiked 117% to 8.4 million unique visitors, caused by the deaths of wrestler Chris
Benoit and his family.
AOL's co-owned entertainment news site TMZ surged 37%, to 9.4 million visitors, attributed largely to national interest in Paris Hilton.
Hearst Digital Media was
the second-fastest-growing property, up 77% to 5.6 million visitors.