Newspaper Websites Attract 61 Percent of All Internet Users in September

Newspaper companies attracted 102.8 million unique visitors to their websites in September -- about 61 percent of all adult Internet users. The analysis, performed by comScore for the Newspaper Association of America, also indicates that newspaper websites reached 55 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds and 73 percent of individuals in households earning more than $100,000 a year.

“This data from comScore reinforces how newspaper publishers are leveraging original, high-quality content to build a powerful and engaged audience in the digital space,” Newspaper Association of America President and chief executive officer John F. Sturm said in the NAA news release. “The analysis also paints a powerful picture of our medium’s Web audience, with newspaper websites attracting consumers that deliver maximum value to advertisers.”

The data says newspaper website users generated nearly 4.1 billion page views and spent more than 3.3 billion minutes browsing the sites.

NAA is adopting comScore’s Unified Digital Measurement methodology – which bridges panel-based and website server-based metrics – as its preferred measurement methodology because it more accurately reflects the true size of the newspaper Web home and at-work online audience, the association said. Web audience figures from comScore will be posted on www.naa.org each month.

The association said that the comScore findings indicate that newspaper websites, which attracted more than 250 million total gross unique visitors in September, draw affluent users and perform strongly in key demographics:

One-in-four (25 percent) of adult newspaper website visitors come from households earning at least $100,000 a year, compared to 21 percent of all adult Internet users. Nearly 73 percent of adult Internet users in this income bracket visited a newspaper website in September.

Nearly 61 percent of adults aged 18+ visited a newspaper website in September. During that same time period, 51 percent of this age group visited Yahoo! News Network, 22 percent visited CNN and 27 percent visited MSNBC.

More than 55 percent of adults in the 25-to-34-year-old demographic visited a newspaper website in September. During that same time period, 52 percent of this age group visited Yahoo! News Network, 22 percent visited CNN and 24 percent visited MSNBC.