EXCLUSIVE: Average Time Spent For Top 30 Newspaper Sites

By: Jennifer Saba There were drastic gains, and losses, in average time spent at the 30 top newspapers sites in June.

It should be noted, however, that effective in June Nielsen expanded its panel eightfold allowing for the inclusion of thousands of more sites for measurement. This change could affect year-over-year comparisons, according to Nielsen.

The average time spent at NYTimes.com, for example, fell nearly by half in the month of June year-over-year, according to Nielsen Online.

The site usually dominates the list of top 30 online newspapers in terms of average time spent, which is generally in the 30 minute-range for NYTimes.com. More people spent time at USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Boston.com, and the Detroit Free Press to name a few sites that had a higher time spent average than NYTimes.com (which clocked in at 14 minutes and 29 seconds)

Even apart from the new Nielsen panels, there are several reasons attributed to the fluctuations in the average time spent per user including a surge in uniques or popular news events.

The list is for June Nielsen Online data for the top 30 newspaper Web sites ranked by unique users Nielsen (owned by E&P's parent company) defines time spent as the average time spent per person at a site during the month.

Site -- June '09 (hour:minute:second) -- June '08

NYTimes.com -- 0:14:29 -- 0:29:00
LA Times -- 0:10:53 -- 0:08:59
USATODAY.com -- 0:15:51 -- 0:14:38
washingtonpost.com -- 0:11:10 -- 0:14:45
Wall Street Journal Online --- 0:06:46 -- 0:09:41

Daily News Online Edition -- 0:07:15 -- 0:07:01
Chicago Tribune -- 0:15:03 -- 0:07:30
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 0:06:42 -- 0:15:38
Boston.com -- 0:32:31 -- 0:08:24
New York Post -- 0:10:34 -- 0:06:46

NJ.com -- 0:09:55 -- 0:10:24
Chicago Sun-Times -- 0:07:13 -- 0:08:11
Newsday -- 0:09:53 -- 0:04:03
Politico -- 0:07:49 -- 0:09:40
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 0:27:32 -- 0:12:47

DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 0:12:20 -- 0:05:17
The Houston Chronicle -- 0:14:51 -- 0:29:50
MercuryNews.com -- 0:06:09 -- 0:04:03
tampabay.com -- 0:06:23 -- 0:06:48
The Washington Times -- 0:05:04 -- 0:03:42

Philly.com -- 0:09:23 -- 0:05:48
MiamiHerald.com -- 0:09:01 -- 0:02:37
Detroit Free Press -- 0:24:59 -- 0:16:03
Azcentral.com -- 0:18:47 -- 0:23:08
Star Tribune -- 0:25:34 -- 0:30:18

The Seattle Times -- 0:18:49 -- 0:09:10
KansasCity.com -- 0:07:33 -- 0:07:39
Orlando Sentinel -- 0:08:56 -- 0:17:52
Sun-Sentinel -- 0:08:34 -- 0:05:21
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 0:05:24 -- 0:11:02