Newspapers Run 9 Of Top 20 News Sites

By: Carl Sullivan Nine of the top 20 news Web sites in the U.S. during the month of July were affiliated with newspapers, down from 10 in June, according to audience statistics from Nielsen/NetRatings.

The top news sites in terms of audience were CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Yahoo! News, and NYTimes.com, in that order. ABCNews.com came in 5th place, followed by Gannett's online properties and washingtonpost.com.

The rankings of current events and news sites was based on a panel of 60,000-plus Americans accessing the Web at work and home.

Several new entrants appeared in the top 20 for the first time last month: Internet Broadcasting Systems Inc. (which runs Web sites for local TV affiliates nationwide), Hearst Newspapers Digital, and AOL.com News. The new entrants appear as a result of improved reporting at Nielsen/NetRatings. A spokeswoman said the company is constantly refining its measurement systems and how it classifies Web sites.

A number of newspaper-affiliated sites also showed up in the top 20 directories/local guides category as ranked by Nielsen/NetRatings. In that list, the top three sites were Yahoo! Yellow Pages, Superpages.com, and Citysearch. The complete table is below.

Nielsen/NetRatings is a joint service of VNU-owned Nielsen and NetRatings, which is majority-owned by VNU, the parent company of E&P.

Top 20 Current Events & Global News Sites
	Unique Audience	Time Per Person
Brand or Channel	(000)	(hh:mm:ss)
CNN General News	15,817	0:26:52
MSNBC	15,531	0:30:20
Yahoo! News	13,676	0:21:05
New York Times	10,074	0:35:27
ABC News	8,053	0:12:35
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Div.	6,720	0:15:20
washingtonpost.com	5,593	0:18:11
Internet Broadcasting Systems Inc.	5,230	0:17:04
MSN Slate	4,109	0:10:17
Time Magazine	3,972	0:04:41
USA Today News	3,644	0:03:55
Hearst Newspapers Digital	3,407	0:24:43
Fox News	3,138	0:31:03
AOL.com News	2,678	0:07:14
LA Times	2,436	0:13:37
NYP Holdings (New York Post)	2,028	0:17:30
Cox Newspapers	1,950	0:23:04
Belo Newspapers	1,831	0:14:10
Associated Press	1,786	0:07:27
drudgereport.com	1,710	0:37:19

Top 20 Directories/Local Guides Sites
	Unique Audience	Time Per Person
Brand or Channel	(000)	(hh:mm:ss)
Yahoo! Yellow Pages	8,358	0:07:37
Superpages.com	8,100	0:08:02
Citysearch	5,192	0:10:15
SMARTpages	4,686	0:05:06
switchboard.com	4,416	0:07:15
US Search.com	4,146	0:04:41
Yahoo! People	4,055	0:04:01
MSN City Guide	2,923	0:02:26
Whitepages.com	2,606	0:04:48
MSN Yellow Pages	2,590	0:01:31
Government Guide	2,458	0:03:56
Boston.com	2,208	0:20:52
E.W. Scripps Newspapers	2,198	0:13:03
NWSource.com	1,478	0:12:38
Atlanta Journal-Constitution	1,419	0:21:33
nj.com	1,106	0:14:30
Zagat Survey	750	0:09:34
TBO.com	733	0:06:15
HitBox.com	716	0:03:06
About Cities and Towns	599	0:01:47
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings. Data based on audience measurement of more than 60,000 U.S. panelists with home and work Net access. July 2002