Absolutely Everything Else: Newspaper Sites See Big Gains in Uniques

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Newspaper Sites See Big Gains in Uniques

By Jennifer Saba

NEW YORK More than half of the top 30 newspaper Web sites gained double-digit percentages of visitors in February, according to new data from Nielsen Online.

The number of unique visitors grew 36% year-over-year to 8.4 million at the Los Angeles Times.

USAToday.com said in a release that its 25% increase of readers in February was due to the Tech section of the site and popular stories. Visitors to the Tech section rose 100% to 1.9 million, according to USA Today. It also cites its coverage of the economic stimulus package, the Octuplet mom and Rihanna for drawing in readers.

The number of uniques at the Orlando Sentinel spiked 57% to 1.5 million. At the N.Y. Daily News, the number of visitors increased 38% to 4.9 million.

For those keeping track of the Web sites of the Seattle Times and its former sister the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The number of uniques at the P-I fell 19% to 1.8 million users. The Seattle Times lost 25% of its visitors year-over-year with a total of 1.5 million uniques in February.

Kansas.com, the web site of The Wichita Eagle, made an appearance on the list in February with 2.7 million uniques.

Below is the latest list of top 30 newspaper Web sites based on U.S. panels and ranked by unique users for February. The percent change compares February 2009 to February 2008. Also keep in mind there are several reasons why traffic fluctuates, including news events.

For January's top 30 list, go here.

NYTimes.com -- 20,126,000 -- 6%
USATODAY.com -- 13,430,000 -- 27%
washingtonpost.com -- 9,240,000 -- (-12%)
LA Times -- 8,421,000 -- 36%
Wall Street Journal Online -- 6,842,000 -- 13%

Boston.com -- 5,659,000 -- 15%
New York Post -- 5,121,000 -- 23%
N.Y. Daily News Online Edition -- 4,924,000 -- 38%
Chicago Tribune -- 4,016,000 -- 22%
Politico -- 3,726,000 -- 29%

Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 3,536,000 -- 20%
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- -- 3,321,000 -- (-25%)
The Houston Chronicle -- 3,117,000 -- 17%
Newsday -- 3,110,000 -- (-20%)
Kansas.com -- 2,782,000 -- N/A

Star Tribune -- 2,442,000 -- 16%
International Herald Tribune -- 2,372,000 -- (-9%)
The Washington Times -- 2,349,000 -- 39%
Village Voice Media -- 2,226,000 -- (-11%)
Chicago Sun-Times -- 2,183,000 -- (-1%)

DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 2,082,000 -- 2%
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 1,839,000 -- (-19%)
MercuryNews.com -- 1,679,000 -- 34%
Azcentral.com -- 1,576,000 -- (-41%)
The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 1,569,000 -- (-1%)

Orlando Sentinel -- 1,533,000 -- 57%
The Seattle Times -- 1,532,000 -- (-25%)
NJ.com -- 1,508,000 -- 24%
Detroit Free Press -- 1,500,000 -- 12%
The Sacramento Bee -- 1,489,000 -- 13%