New Study Charts Readership Reach -- Guess Who's No. 1?

By: Jennifer Saba The Times-Picayune's Web site, nola.com, reaches the most adults within its market. Slightly more than 50% of adults in New Orleans have visited the site in the past 30 days, representing 422,354 uniques. More than 800,000 adults live in the New Orleans metro area. When the print edition of the paper is included, the Times-Picayune reaches more than 85% of the market.

The data is the latest from The Media Audit, which ranks more than 100 daily newspapers across 88 markets.

The Web site of the San Antonio Express-News also reaches 50% of its market. However, the unduplicated online and print reach was 80%. The Washington Post's Web site ranked third, reaching more than 41% of its market.

"Daily newspapers were the first to embrace a multi-platform distribution strategy amidst a period when consumers were spending more and more time with the Internet," Bob Jordan, president of the Media Audit, said in a statement. "And as a result, newspapers followed the way of the consumer."

The latest survey also found that heavy newspaper readers who spend more than an hour per day with the print edition, currently spend 3.7 hours per day online in general.

The Media Audit ranked the top 10 newspaper Web sites by market reach, which also includes the reach of total unduplicated print and online readers for the given market. Three other Advance Publications -- the Times-Picayune's parent company -- made the list.


Site -- Web Reach-- Monthly Uniques -- Unduplicated Net Reach

Nola.com (Times-Picayune) -- 50.4% -- 422,354 -- 85.8%

MYSA.com (San Antonio Express News) -- 50.4% -- 729,347 -- 80.6%

Washingtonpost.com -- 41.6% -- 1,576,931 -- 77.1%

MLive.com (Ann Arbor News) -- 41.5% -- 113,066 -- 74.1%

AJC.com (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) -- 41.0% -- 1,572,397 -- 66.4%

Syracuse.com (The Post-Standard) -- 40.7% --203,173 -- 84.9%

Indystar.com (Indianapolis Star) -- 39.9% -- 481,824 -- 77.8%

AL.com (Birmingham News) -- 39.8% -- 318,595 -- 76.5%

HamptonsRoads/PilotOnline.com (Virginian Pilot) -- 39.3% -- 467,859 -- 63.3%

RGJ.com (Reno Gazette-Journal) -- 39.0% -- 136,635 -- 61.0%