8 Newspaper Sites on Top 20 List

By: Eight of the top 20 news Web sites or groups in the U.S. during March were affiliated with newspapers, according to audience statistics from Nielsen//NetRatings.

The top sites in Nielsen//NetRatings' Current Events & Global News category were MSNBC.com, CNN General News, Yahoo! News, AOL News, and NYTimes.com. When aggregated, Gannett's newspaper sites (with the exception of USAToday.com) ranked 6th. Counted separately by Nielsen//NetRatings, USA Today's Web site ranked 13th.

Other aggregated newspaper groups included in the top 20 were Tribune Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers Digital, McClatchy Newspapers, and MediaNews Group Newspapers.

The rankings of current events and news sites were based on a panel of 60,000-plus Americans accessing the Web at work and home.

Three newspaper-affiliated sites also showed up in the top 20 directories/local guides category as ranked by Nielsen//NetRatings. The complete table is below.

Nielsen//NetRatings is a joint service of VNU-owned Nielsen and NetRatings, which is majority-owned by VNU, the parent company of E&P.

Top 20 Current Events & Global News Sites
	Unique Audience	Time Per Person
Brand or Channel	(000)	(hh:mm:ss)
MSNBC	24,333	0:30:27
CNN General News	23,184	0:32:35
Yahoo! News	18,724	0:29:40
AOL News	17,381	0:31:52
NYTimes.com	9,546	0:41:05
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Div.	7,389	0:17:36
Internet Broadcasting Systems Inc.	7,159	0:13:50
washingtonpost.com	7,079	0:24:35
Tribune Newspapers	6,887	0:24:15
ABC News	6,513	0:10:23
Fox News	6,216	0:41:19
MSN Slate	6,012	0:10:05
USAToday.com	5,796	0:23:36
BBC World Service	5,295	0:14:13
Hearst Newspapers Digital	4,968	0:14:09
CBS News	4,724	0:09:36
Time Magazine	4,355	0:06:06
McClatchy Newspapers	3,651	0:16:54
WorldNow	3,558	0:09:13
MediaNews Group Newspapers	2,925	0:12:51

Top 20 Directories/Local Guides Sites
	Unique Audience	Time Per Person
Brand or Channel	(000)	(hh:mm:ss)
Yahoo! Get Local	15,205	0:09:54
Superpages.com	7,565	0:06:45
Time Warner Cable	5,488	0:21:02
US Search.com	4,755	0:03:39
Switchboard.com	4,588	0:07:23
Citysearch	4,499	0:09:03
Yahoo! People	4,197	0:03:36
SMARTpages	3,083	0:03:59
Whitepages.com	2,955	0:04:16
Government Guide	2,745	0:03:58
MSN Yellow Pages	2,555	0:01:03
AOL Yellow Pages	2,351	0:05:58
MSN City Guides	2,214	0:02:08
E.W. Scripps Newspapers	1,946	0:12:51
Atlanta Journal-Constitution	1,705	0:11:556
Yellowpages.com	1,416	0:05:23
QwestDex.com	1,331	0:07:27
nj.com (Advance Publications)	927	0:11:36
areaguides.net	877	0:02:21
About Cities and Towns	805	0:01:22
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings. Data based on audience measurement of more than 60,000 U.S. panelists with home and work Net access. March 2003