Newspaper web sites – as opposed to online newspapers – in the United States are enjoying a readership surge, suggesting that traditional media is handling the transition from paper to web.
A new report from Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America found the average monthly audience figures for newspaper web sites grew by more than 3.6 million in 2007 to 62.8 million.
The numbers represented an increase of more than six per cent over the previous year. They are not staggeringly large numbers, but an improvement publishers have seized as good news regardless.
“Newspapers continue to successfully transform themselves into multimedia companies, offering unparalleled content that reaches an audience growing in both size and sophistication,” said NAA president and CEO John F. Sturm.
“Newspapers’ expanding print and digital portfolio offers value to advertisers by providing a targeted, comprehensive menu of choices for today’s discriminating consumer. As our industry’s transition accelerates, it is clear consumers recognize newspapers as their trusted source of information in an increasingly digital environment.”
For the year’s fourth quarter, 39 per cent of all active web users visited newspaper web sites, with visits averaging 44 minutes a month. Users generated more than three billion page impressions on average, a 7.3 per cent increase over the same period a year ago.
Meanwhile, News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has told the World Economic Forum in Davos that plans to make the Wall Street Journal online free would not include all of the newspaper’s content.
Mr Murdoch said that while information that users can get “more or less as a commodity on different sites about finance” would be free on the WSJ site.
But the more specialist information, and the more specialist insights from the Journal about business and finance would remain a part of a subscription service.
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