EXCLUSIVE: Time Spent at Major Newspaper Sites Low in September

By: Jennifer Saba The site with the highest average time spent per person in September? That would be the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, clocking in at 33 minutes and 17 seconds. The Star Tribune's Web site was next in line with an average time spent of 20 minutes and 18 seconds.

As far as the top five newspaper Web sites are concerned, visitors spent on average less than 13 minutes during September. The data comes from Nielsen Online and tracks the time spent on Web sites for the top 30 newspapers ranked by uniques.

The data should be viewed with caution, Nielsen emphasized. As of June 2009, the measurement firm vastly expanded its panel -- making it eight times larger. As a result, Nielsen warns that year-over-year trending could be affected for some sites. Additionally, spikes in uniques and other events could affect time spent.

Below is the average time spent per person in September 2009 compared to September 2008, ranked by unique users.

For August's list, go here. (Nielsen Online and E&P are both owned by The Nielsen Co.).

Site -- Sept. '09 (hour:minute:second) -- Sept. '08

NYTimes.com -- 0:12:36 -- 0:36:47
Wall Street Journal Online -- 0:07:04 -- 0:13:34
USATODAY.com -- 0:11:49 -- 0:16:32
Washingtonpost.com -- 0:11:08 -- 0:11:48
LA Times -- 0:09:22 -- 0:07:03

Daily News Online Edition -- 0:07:48 -- 0:05:36
Boston.com -- 0:14:20 -- 0:09:30
Chicago Tribune -- 0:12:07 -- 0:08:09
Politico -- 0:07:20 -- 0:16:20
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 0:08:19 -- 0:14:24

New York Post -- 0:09:10 -- 0:07:06
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 0:19:42 -- 0:19:55
NJ.com -- 0:15:34 -- 0:04:16
Chicago Sun-Times -- 0:08:56 -- 0:05:13
tampabay.com -- 0:04:39 -- 0:10:14

Newsday -- 0:09:50 -- 0:04:22
The Washington Times -- 0:05:38 -- 0:03:04
MercuryNews.com -- 0:03:51 -- 0:02:52
KansasCity.com -- 0:09:21 -- 0:07:33
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 0:15:41 -- 0:04:36

Philly.com -- 0:08:26 -- 0:03:44
MiamiHerald.com -- 0:06:52 -- 0:03:22
TBO.com -- 0:06:23 -- 0:10:53
The Houston Chronicle -- 0:13:58 -- 0:39:15
Star Tribune -- 0:20:18 -- 0:32:11

Baltimore Sun -- 0:07:30 -- 0:07:29
St. Louis Post Dispatch -- 0:33:17 -- 0:27:14
Orlando Sentinel -- 0:08:06 -- 0:09:16
MLive.com -- 0:11:09 -- 0:16:30
Azcentral.com -- 0:17:07 -- 0:21:11