Newspaper companies drew unprecedented traffic to their Websites in the first quarter of 2010, on average attracting 74.4 million unique visitors per month - more than one-third of all Internet users, according to a custom analysis provided by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America. This latest statistic comes on the heels of the strong audience numbers posted by newspaper sites in Q4 2009, and indicate that visitors to newspaper sites generated more than 3.2 billion page views during the first quarter of 2010, spending more than 2.3 billion minutes browsing. The new numbers echo the sentiments heard in “Site Matters: The Value of Local Newspaper Web Sites,” a February survey conducted by comScore for the NAA, which found that newspaper Web sites continue to be the most used and valued sites for consumers seeking credible and trustworthy local content and advertising online. Some 57 percent of the 3,050 respondents in that survey identified local newspaper Web sites as the top online source for local information -- ahead of the totals for all other media. Newspaper sites ranked first as a source for local information (29 percent), local sports (27 percent), local entertainment (26 percent) and local classifieds (39 percent), ahead of local TV Web sites and other news portals.
http://www.ejc.net/media_news/nielsen_online_naa_newspaper_companies_drew_record_traffic_in_q1_2010/
