Almost three in five US internet users read newspapers online each month, according to comScore Media Metrix data.
57% of Web Audience Read Online Paper in May
Online newspapers received about 123.9 million unique US visitors in May 2010, or roughly 57% of the total monthly US unique internet audience of about 215.7 million users, MarketingCharts reports. Those visitors viewed about 5.3 billion pages, or about 0.9% of the total 592.5 billion pages viewed during the month. The average visitor viewed 43 newspaper pages, out of 2,747 total average pages viewed per visitor per month.
New York Times Leading Online Newspaper Brand
The New York Times brand led the online newspaper category during May 2010 with about 32.5 million unique visitors, or 26.2% of the total monthly audience. Those users viewed 719 million pages, or about 13.6% of the total 5.3 billion newspaper pages viewed during the month. The average New York Times visitor viewed 22 pages, more than half of the average 43 newspaper pages viewed per online newspaper reader per month.
Online Newspapers Attract High CPM Rate
Based on comScore’s April 2010 ranking of CPM (cost per thousand impressions) rates for different types of digital media, online newspapers led all top site categories where display ads appear. Online newspapers averaged a $6.99 CPM rate for the month, nearly three times the average CPM for the total US internet at $2.52. Sports ($6.29) and general news ($6.14) were the only other categories to have an average CPM rate of more than $5 during April 2010.
Online newspapers achieved this distinction despite having one of the lowest display ad impression totals (8.5 billion) and impression shares (2.4%) of any leading site category. Estimated spending on online newspaper display ads during April 2010 was about $59.4 million, or roughly 6.6% of the total $893.7 million comScore estimates was spent on online display advertising during the month. This amount placed online newspapers squarely in the middle (fifth) out of the top 10 site categories in terms of display ad dollars spent during April 2010.
