Newspaper Web sites attract 60M visitors

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. newspaper Web sites had almost 60 million visitors each month this summer, up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, a trade association said Wednesday.

More than 59.6 million people visited a newspaper site in July, the second-largest monthly audience on record, the Newspaper Association of America said.

The most newspaper monthly visitors was 60.3 million in May, the association said.

User traffic slowed to 59.2 million in August and to 58.1 million in September, the association said.

Time spent at newspaper sites averaged more than 43 minutes a month, compared with 40 minutes a month in the third quarter of 2006, the association said.

The number of newspaper site visitors amounts to 37.1 percent of all active Internet users, the association said.

"As the newspaper industry moves toward measurement data reflecting the medium's total reach and audience, this analysis is evidence of newspapers' broad appeal in a highly competitive media marketplace," association President and Chief Executive Officer John Sturm said.

North America's Audit Bureau of Circulations said in a statement it would, for the first time, release online readership information along with paid print circulation for some 200 newspapers Nov. 5.