Newspapers Run Half Of Top News Sites

By: Half of the top 20 news Web sites in the U.S. during November were affiliated with newspapers, according to audience statistics from Nielsen//NetRatings.

The top news sites in terms of audience for November were MSNBC.com, CNN.com, AOL News, Yahoo! News and ABCNews.com. The top newspaper site was NYTimes.com, which ranked 6th, followed by Gannett's online properties at 7th, USAToday.com at 8th, and washingtonpost.com in 10th place.

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.

Four 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! Get Local, 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)
MSNBC	17,702	0:23:37
CNN General News	16,823	0:29:14
AOL News	15,034	0:20:15
Yahoo! News	14,817	0:21:26
ABC News	8,631	0:12:08
New York Times	7,670	0:34:04
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Div.	7,654	0:16:41
USA Today	6,025	0:22:40
Internet Broadcasting Systems Inc.	5,609	0:17:16
washingtonpost.com	5,129	0:20:37
Hearst Newspapers Digital	4,515	0:16:15
Time Magazine	4,161	0:06:29
McClatchy Newspapers	3,643	0:18:52
MSN Slate	3,368	0:09:34
Fox News	3,182	0:37:05
WorldNow	2,855	0:10:31
Los Angeles Times	2,437	0:17:05
The Boston Globe	2,368	0:23:47
NYP Holdings (New York Post)	2,268	0:15:33
Cox Newspapers	2,263	0:14:59

Top 20 Directories/Local Guides Sites
	Unique Audience	Time Per Person
Brand or Channel	(000)	(hh:mm:ss)
Yahoo! Get Local	13,770	0:10:54
Superpages.com	7,683	0:05:49
Citysearch	5,511	0:09:46
switchboard.com	4,550	0:07:47
US Search.com	4,195	0:03:53
Yahoo! People	3,941	0:03:14
MSN City Guides	3,569	0:02:59
SMARTpages	2,956	0:03:31
Whitepages.com	2,550	0:03:59
MSN Yellow Pages	2,463	0:00:46
AOL Yellow Pages	2,232	0:05:33
E.W. Scripps Newspapers	2,176	0:11:33
Government Guide	1,885	0:03:48
Yellowpages.com	1,417	0:07:10
Atlanta Journal-Constitution	1,348	0:17:38
QwestDex.com	1,022	0:11:52
mlive.com (Advance)	942	0:07:38
nj.com (Advance)	924	0:12:12
About Cities and Towns	740	0:02:04
areaguides.net	604	0:02:13
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings. Data based on audience measurement of more than 60,000 U.S. panelists with home and work Net access. November 2002