Newspapers gaining online readership

Posted Jan 28th 2009 2:45PM by Zac Bissonnette
Filed under: Newspapers

It isn't news that newspaper circulation is in a death spiral but there is some good news for publishers: More people are visiting newspaper websites more frequently.

According to data from Nielsen Online, 40 million Americans visited at least one of the top 10 newspaper sites in December -- That's a 16% increase over 2007. Those visitors viewed newspaper websites an average of 6.3 times in December, compared with 5.8 times a year earlier.

That data is encouraging and suggests that the newspaper business model may not be as broken as we think: The method of charging people for the delivery of yesterday's news that can be viewed online for free the next morning is clearly not sustainable -- but the reporting operations of newspapers may be.

However the numbers may be artificially high because of current events. Unprecedented excitement about a new president, the financial meltdown, and the unraveling of the largest Ponzi scheme in history likely contributed to that increase. If the trend of readership growth continues over the next few months, that will be a good omen.

But let's not dwell too much on the factors that might explain that 15% jump. Newspaper need all the good news they can get, so let's declare victory and move on.

Tags: inthenews, Newspaper, Nielsen Online, NielsenOnline