Online Newspaper Growth a Bright Spot
Amid gloomy reports (WSJ sub. req’d) about the health of print newspapers, there’s some very good news in online revenues and traffic growth for newspaper sites. According to Nielsen and the NAA:
Both the overall number and percentage of Internet users visiting newspaper Web sites hit new all-time highs in November 2005, according to a new report by Nielsen//NetRatings for the Newspaper Association of America. The data, which takes into account home and work Internet usage, shows that more than 55 million people visited newspaper Web sites in November, a 30 percent increase (42.5 million) from the same period a year ago.
The November visitors also represent more than one third (36 percent) of all active Internet users that month, the most of any month since NAA began tracking online usage in January 2004.
For the year's fourth quarter, the monthly unique audience averaged more than 53.6 million and 35.2 percent of all active Web users. The time Internet users spend on newspaper sites also continues to rise as users' visits averaged 42 minutes a month during the quarter.
In addition, news content is the No. 1 type of content that users seek out online.
Separately, here’s a piece in Ad Age (reg. req’d) about Neil Budde and Yahoo! News and the delicate dance he’s doing with his traditional media partners:
"We're not interested in setting up a full news service with a correspondent in the White House," said Neil Budde at the Software & Information Industry Association meeting held at New York's Cipriani restaurant on 42nd Street. Perhaps to calm the jittery nerves of some of the traditional-media pros in the audience, he added, "We want to be your partners."