According to Editor & Publisher Only 11 Top Newspaper Web Sites Report Increase in Time Spent

There have been numerous reports that newspaper subscriptions and readership are down. Many equated this to a rise in people using the newspaper’s online properties instead of newsprint. Based on this report with data from Nielsen, most newspapers’ online properties have not increased time spent.

The average time spent per person for the month of March ranked by March 2008 unique visitors is below.

These sites increased minutes spent per month on their sites:
Mar-08 Increase from 2007
• The Politico 15:11 09:19
• The Houston Chronicle 28:41 08:53
• Star Tribune 33:02 07:10
• Seattle Post Intelligencer 11:18 05:11
• Daily News Online Edition 08:36 03:34
• Wall Street Journal Online 14:49 03:31
• NYTimes.com 37:14 03:26
• Chicago Sun-Times 11:04 03:03
• Village Voice Media 06:53 02:59
• Azcentral.com 13:23 00:41
• International Herald Tribune 02:47 00:33
• The San Diego Union Tribune 05:11 00:11

These sites decreased time spent from 2007:
Mar-08 Decrease from 2007
Atlanta Journal Constitution 11:23 17:22
Philly.com 06:48 14:52
USATODAY.com 11:26 06:24
MiamiHerald.com 03:10 04:55
Detroit Free Press 13:23 04:44
Boston.com 11:40 04:43
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle 10:13 04:28
Chicago Tribune 07:16 03:50
LA Times 07:38 02:57
Cleveland.com 10:36 02:56
Sun Sentinel 08:17 02:55
Newsday 03:53 02:15
MercuryNews.com 05:06 02:11
DallasNews.com 04:51 02:04
Orlando Sentinel 04:19 01:59
washingtonpost.com 16:15 01:46
tampabay.com 06:19 00:55
New York Post 08:49 00:38

Some sites that had less time spent actually had an increased number of unique visitors per month. So more people spending less time.

What does this mean? What is causing it?

  • Start pages like iGoogle and RSS feeds/readers are a contributing factor. You can now get the information you want without visiting the site or just visiting for that one article and leaving. You can get more information from a variety of news sources in less time.
  • Better navigation and user experience. Improved search features and navigation is also helping to eliminate the hassle of browsing around trying to find what you want.
  • Engagement - Interaction Value: Social media has clearly been entertaining and engaging people more so than in 2007. As networks grow their value to also inform people increases. Newspapers sites that adopt truly interactive models vs. populating their newsprint online will survive. Those that create social web services will thrive.

In the late 1990’s people predicted newspaper companies would die because of the Internet. Newspaper companies adapted and created strong online properties. In 2008, it the newspaper’s online sites that need to adapt again.

Even though my Google Reader has 150 feeds, I still like reading the newspaper.

How much time per month do you spend reading your local newspaper vs. going on your local newspaper site?