Time Spent at Top 30 News Web Sites Drops in October

By: Jennifer Saba Just like the nation's top newspapers, other leading news sites experienced a falloff in the average time spent per person during October.

The Fox News Digital Network, for example, went from an average time spent of 53 minutes in October 2008 to more than 23 minutes in October 2009.

The average time spent per person at The Huffington Post slipped from about 26 minutes to roughly 15 minutes in October this year.

The year-over-year comparisons were very difficult in October since last year there was heated election coupled with the collapse of the economy.

This data should be viewed with caution, Nielsen emphasized. As of June 2009, the measurement firm vastly expanded its panel -- making it eight times larger. As a result, Nielsen warns that year-over-year trending could be affected for some sites. Additionally, spikes in uniques and other events could affect time spent.

Below is the average time spent per person in October 2009 compared with October 2008, ranked by unique users.

For the September list, go here. (Nielsen Online and E&P are both owned by The Nielsen Co.).

Site -- Oct. '09 (hour:minute:second) -- Oct. '08

Yahoo! News -- 0:13:38 -- 0:26:34
CNN Digital Network _ 0:31:49 -- -- 0:44:30
MSNBC Digital Network -- 0:19:35 -- 0:29:28
AOL News -- 0:17:55 -- 0:26:19
NYTimes.com -- 0:15:34 -- 0:40:00

Fox News Digital Network -- 0:24:23 -- 0:53:16
Tribune Newspapers -- 0:11:50 -- 0:10:56
ABCNEWS Digital Network -- 0:09:44 -- 0:10:02
Google News -- 0:10:28 -- 0:20:39
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division -- 0:18:17 -- 0:20:05

McClatchy Newspaper Network -- 0:11:46 -- 0:12:50
CBS News Digital Network -- 0:06:43 -- 0:10:13
USATODAY.com -- 0:14:01 -- 0:19:31
washingtonpost.com -- 0:11:38 -- 0:14:52
Advance Internet -- 0:15:22 -- 0:09:36

MediaNews Group Newspapers -- 0:10:37 -- 0:12:10
TheHuffingtonPost.com -- 0:15:41 -- 0:25:41
Hearst Newspapers Digital -- 0:11:02 -- 0:19:29
BBC -- 0:12:33 -- 0:12:36
WorldNow -- 0:09:42 -- 0:13:38

Daily News Online Edition -- 0:06:55 -- 0:05:22
The Slate Group Websites -- 0:07:51 -- 0:08:26
Examiner.com -- 0:04:16 -- 0:01:28
NBC Local Media -- 0:05:41 -- 0:09:41
Topix -- 0:09:16 -- 0:05:42

Gannett Broadcasting -- 0:10:29 -- 0:09:06
Cox Newspapers -- 0:21:06 -- 0:15:44
Boston.com -- 0:15:37 -- 0:12:59
NPR -- 0:04:59 -- 0:06:56
Belo Newspapers -- 0:08:31 -- 0:06:12