June a Sleepy Month for Many Top 30 Newspaper Web Sites -- as Nielsen Grows Panels

By: Jennifer Saba The news of Michael Jackson's death in the waning days of June didn't help traffic at many newspaper Web sites, according to new data from Nielsen Online.

The number of monthly uniques was down year-over-year at many sites including NYTimes.com, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the New York Post. Traffic at USA Today was flat.

The number of people visiting the Los Angeles Times in June was up 66% year-over-year to 10.2 million uniques, possibly due to the record traffic following Jackson's death.

That said, this data was drawn from expanded panels introduced by Nielsen in June. The measurement firm and Web researcher increased the size of its panels by a factor of eight. "For some sites," Nielsen said, "trending of previously reported data with current results may show percentage differences attributable to these products enhancements and should only be compared directionally."

The expanded panels allow Nielsen to provide data for 10 times as many sites -- 30,000 versus 3,000.

Below are the top 30 newspaper Web sites for the month of June, a custom list from Nielsen Online provided to E&P. The sites are ranked by unique users and the percent change compares June 2009 uniques to June 2008 uniques. Please note that several factors including news events can cause swings in traffic.

(Nielsen Online is owned by the same parent company as E&P.)

NYTimes.com -- 17,423,000 -- (-1%)
LA Times -- 10,267,000 -- 66%
USATODAY.com -- 9,597,000 -- 0%
washingtonpost.com -- 9,584,000 -- 6%
Wall Street Journal Online -- 7,485,000 -- 16%

Daily News Online Edition -- 6,994,000 -- 84%
Chicago Tribune -- 4,337,000 -- (-12%)
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 4,321,000 -- 19%
Boston.com -- 4,020,000 -- (-23%)
New York Post -- 3,875,000 -- (-16%)

NJ.com -- 3,155,000 -- 105%
Chicago Sun-Times -- 2,890,000 -- 8%
Newsday -- 2,840,000 -- (-6%)
Politico -- 2,605,000 -- 7%
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 2,345,000 -- (-14%)

DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 2,199,000 -- (-1%)
The Houston Chronicle -- 2,079,000 -- (-4%)
MercuryNews.com -- 2,051,000 -- 23%
tampabay.com -- 1,995,000 -- 26%
The Washington Times -- 1,994,000 -- 90%

Philly.com -- 1,931,000 -- 71%
MiamiHerald.com -- 1,906,000 -- 54%
Detroit Free Press -- 1,876,000 -- 64%
Azcentral.com -- 1,874,000 -- 16%
Star Tribune -- 1,837,000 -- 0%

The Seattle Times -- 1,826,000 -- (-5%)
KansasCity.com -- 1,705,000 -- 18%
Orlando Sentinel -- 1,704,000 -- 26%
Sun-Sentinel -- 1,560,000 -- 30%
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 1,530,000 -- (-21%)