Newspapers Run 9 of Top 20 Web News Domains

By: Nine of the top 20 news Web sites or groups in the U.S. during May were affiliated with newspapers, according to audience statistics from Nielsen//NetRatings. Eight were affiliated with broadcasters, and three were online-only.

The top sites in Nielsen//NetRatings' Current Events & Global News category were MSNBC, CNN, Yahoo! News, AOL News, and NYTimes.com. When aggregated, Gannett's newspaper sites (with the exception of USAToday.com) ranked 6th. Counted separately by Nielsen//NetRatings, USA Today's Web site ranked 11th.

Nielsen//NetRatings classifies news Web sites according to the media companies' preferences; thus, some newspaper Web sites are counted separately in these rankings, while others are aggregated for a single newspaper chainwide ranking.

Other aggregated newspaper groups included in the top 20 were Knight Ridder Digital, Tribune Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers Digital, McClatchy Newspapers, and Advance Internet. Washingtonpost.com ranked 10th.

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

One newspaper chain, E.W. Scripps, also showed up in the top 20 directories/local guides category as ranked by Nielsen//NetRatings. 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)
MSNBC	19,703	0:20:32
CNN	19,180	0:26:37
Yahoo! News	15,527	0:24:34
AOL News	15,182	0:27:33
NYTimes.com	8,618	0:34:58
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Div.	8,329	0:15:40
Internet Broadcasting Systems Inc.	7,914	0:15:55
Knight Ridder Digital	7,685	0:12:32
Tribune Newspapers	7,426	0:19:20
washingtonpost.com	6,026	0:20:18
USAToday.com	5,186	0:16:26
ABC News	5,060	0:10:30
Hearst Newspapers Digital	4,654	0:16:01
Fox News	4,622	0:34:05
MSN Slate	4,468	0:11:27
BBC World Service	4,136	0:07:42
McClatchy Newspapers	4,086	0:16:19
Advance Internet	3,768	0:14:37
WorldNow	3,586	0:08:51
CBS News	3,271	0:08:58

Top 20 Directories/Local Guides Sites
	Unique Audience	Time Per Person
Brand or Channel	(000)	(hh:mm:ss)
Yahoo! Get Local	17,267	0:10:10
Superpages.com	7,688	0:06:56
Switchboard.com	5,193	0:07:54
Time Warner Cable	4,726	0:18:51
Citysearch	4,177	0:08:25
Yahoo! People	4,039	0:03:22
SMARTpages	3,457	0:04:52
Whitepages.com	3,130	0:06:29
MSN Yellow Pages	2,536	0:01:05
Government Guide	2,480	0:03:14
AOL Yellow Pages	2,465	0:05:11
E.W. Scripps Newspapers	2,057	0:10:39
Yellowpages.com	1,640	0:05:02
QuestDex.com	1,558	0:07:56
About Cities and Towns	1,147	0:02:08
Yellowpages-ads.com	820	0:01:03
reversephonedirectory.com	668	0:01:35
This is LONDON	664	0:03:06
New York Metro	595	0:03:49
areaguides.net	506	0:01:44
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings. Data based on audience measurement of more than 60,000 U.S. panelists with home and work Net access. May 2003