EXCLUSIVE: Average Time Spent Increases -- at Least a Bit -- at Many Top Newspaper Web Sites in July

By: Jennifer Saba More than half of the nation's top 30 newspaper Web sites managed to increase the average amount of time readers spent at the sites (which had been declining in many places) -- though some by only mere seconds.

The Washingtonpost.com, for example, upped the average time spent by users over the course of July to 17 minutes and 31 seconds from 14 minutes and 31 seconds in July of the previous year.

Both the NYTimes.com and The Wall Street Journal Online experienced major drops in the average time spent. So did The Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Chronicle.

However (as we have noted several times), Nielsen Online, which provided the data, vastly expanded its panels effective in June. The new size could account for swings in unique users and the average time spent (though both national papers should benefit from a larger panel) as well as news cycles.

The list is for July Nielsen 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.

For June's list, go here.

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

NYTimes.com -- 0:16:02 -- 0:32:03
washingtonpost.com -- 0:17:31 -- 0:14:31
USATODAY.com -- 0:14:28 -- 0:16:17
Daily News Online Edition -- 0:07:53 -- 0:05:18
LA Times -- 0:10:10 -- 0:07:39

Wall Street Journal Online -- 0:10:13 -- 0:18:28
New York Post -- 0:08:55 -- 0:08:13
Boston.com -- 0:19:39 -- 0:09:01
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 0:06:40 -- 0:16:04
Chicago Tribune -- 0:12:29 -- 0:08:11

Politico -- 0:06:59 -- 0:06:56
NJ.com -- 0:11:49 -- 0:06:09
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 0:16:49 -- 0:09:55
The Houston Chronicle -- 0:12:25 -- 0:25:21
Philly.com -- 0:09:19 -- 0:05:27

Chicago Sun-Times -- 0:06:28 -- 0:07:04
Newsday -- 0:09:34 -- 0:03:29
The Sacramento Bee -- 0:09:22 -- 0:16:09
Orlando Sentinel -- 0:09:28 -- 0:13:42
The Seattle Times -- 0:15:51 -- 0:13:11

Azcentral.com -- 0:16:02 -- 0:23:49
MercuryNews.com -- 0:08:11 -- 0:03:49
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 0:12:51 -- 0:04:50
MiamiHerald.com -- 0:05:45 -- 0:02:47
The Washington Times -- 0:05:47 -- 0:04:49

tampabay.com -- 0:07:54 -- 0:07:50
KansasCity.com -- 0:07:35 -- 0:09:35
Baltimore Sun -- 0:07:31 -- 0:09:43
Star Tribune -- 0:21:42 -- 0:36:39
Detroit Free Press -- 0:16:46 -- 0:17:36