EXCLUSIVE From Nielsen: Nearly Half of Top 30 Newspaper Sites Decline in 'Time Spent'

By: Jennifer Saba The average time spent per person at the Houston Chronicle online soared in July, up to about 25 minutes from 14 minutes in July 2007. And the average visitor at the San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com lingered for 16 minutes during the course of July compared with 12 minutes in the same month last year.

But nearly half of the top 30 newspaper sites, ranked by total number of unique users, fell year-over-year. Fourteen dropped slightly or significantly.

Nielsen Online (owned by E&P's parent company) provided the latest data for July, which tracks the average time spent per person at a site over a course of a month.

Within the top 5 online newspapers -- ranked by unique users -- three reported growth in the average time spent per person: NYTimes.com, USAToday.com, and the Wall Street Journal Online.

At The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the average time spent per person fell from 23 minutes in July '07 to almost 10 minutes in July '08. Boston.com's average time fell in half to 9 minutes.

Below is the average time spent per person for the month of July, ranked in the order of that site's unique vistors. This is a custom list from Nielsen Online and can fluctuate based on several factors including news cycles.

Time per Person (hh:mm:ss) this July vs. last July

NYTimes.com -- 0:32:03 -- 0:27:21
USATODAY.com -- 0:16:17 -- 0:11:48
washingtonpost.com -- 0:14:31 -- 0:17:55
LA Times -- 0:07:39 -- 0:08:26
Wall Street Journal Online -- 0:18:28 -- 0:12:17

New York Post -- 0:08:13 -- 0:09:00
Boston.com -- 0:09:01 -- 0:18:37
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 0:16:04 -- 0:12:17
Daily News Online Edition -- 0:05:18 -- 0:05:04
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 0:09:55 -- 0:23:09

Ottaway Newspapers -- 0:03:34 -- 0:06:13
Chicago Tribune -- 0:08:11 -- 0:15:55
Newsday -- 0:03:29 -- 0:03:30
International Herald Tribune -- 0:02:39 -- 0:01:48
Chicago Sun-Times -- 0:07:04 -- 0:06:32

The Houston Chronicle -- 0:25:21 -- 0:14:20
Politico -- 0:06:56 -- 0:06:14
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 0:04:50 -- 0:03:29
NJ.com -- 0:06:09 -- 0:08:21
Village Voice Media -- 0:04:58 -- 0:04:45

Philly.com -- 0:05:27 -- 0:06:58
The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 0:05:33 -- 0:04:44
MercuryNews.com -- 0:03:49 -- 0:04:32
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 0:14:48 -- 0:13:02
Baltimore Sun -- 0:09:43 -- 0:10:20

Star Tribune -- 0:36:39 -- 0:22:36
Kentucky.com -- 0:02:02 -- NA
Boston Herald -- 0:05:35 -- 0:05:15
The Detroit News -- 0:09:35 -- 0:14:09
OregonLive.com -- 0:04:27 -- 0:08:46