TWX: ComScore releases September web traffic measures

ComScore is out with its September numbers for Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) and AOL's largest sites. These numbers, along with data from Nielsen/NetRatings and Alexa are used to follow the audience activity at major web properties.

September was not a particularly good month for Time Warner's web properties. The total US audience of unique web users rose 2% from the same month a year ago to 173.4 million. Only one major Time Warner site grew faster than that. Unique visitors to MapQuest were up 10% to 48.6 million.

Unique visitors to the Time Warner network of sites rose 1% to 120.3 million. AOL was down 1% to 88 million. Visitors to the AIM.com and AIM Application site fell 1% to 29.6 million unique visitors.

CNN.com's unique visitors fell 7% to 24.4 million compared to September 2005.

Netscape, in the midst of its transition to a blog site, fell 23% to 9.9 million. Unique visits to the ICQ community site fell 48% to 911,000.

The ComScore data supports the figures from the other two measurement services. If AOL is planning to replace subscription revenue with online advertising dollars, the audience of its web properties is going to have to start growing.

Douglas McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.