Online Ownership - 2006 Annual Report

Two organizations are the central providers for online traffic figures: Nielsen//Net Ratings and Comscore MediaMetrix. Both show increases in 2005 traffic among the top sites, though their numbers for specific sites vary somewhat.

The top 20 news sites, as measured by Nielsen//Net Ratings, averaged 10 .7 million visitors a month from January through December 2005. That was an increase of 9% over 2004.1

Unique Visitors for Top 20 News and Information Sites

Unique visitors per month

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Source: Nielsen//Net Ratings

* Beginning with Sept. 2004 data, Nielsen//NetRatings--to increase accuracy--has improved its NetView home panel sample weighting methodology by updating projections for key segments of the Internet universe. Caution should be used with trending data.

At the very top, four sites continue to generate the most traffic, though there was some reshuffling among those leaders.

In 2005, Yahoo News moved to the top, averaging 24.1 million unique visitors a month. That was up 12% over the previous year, the most of the major players.

At No. 2, MSNBC’s online audience stood at 23.4 million in 2005, an increase of 11%. CNN, the overall leader 2004, experienced a slight decline in 2005, dropping 5% to 22 million unique visitors.

And AOL News remained fourth at 16.2 million, up 11% in 2005, according to data from Nielsen//Net Ratings. After the big four, there was a steep drop - off in traffic — an average of around 8 million unique visitors a month, according to Nielsen//Net Ratings.2

Top Online News Sites (Nielsen)

January to December 2005

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Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

* Beginning with Sept. 2004 data, Nielsen//NetRatings--to increase accuracy--has improved its NetView home panel sample weighting methodology by updating projections for key segments of the Internet universe. Caution should be used with trending data.

Data from Comscore also shows the same four sites dominating , but has AOL News with a considerably higher monthly average than the one from Nielsen//Net Ratings. Yahoo led the way, with an average of 27 million unique visitors a month in 2005 with MSNBC (26.2 million) not too far behind. CNN (21.9 million) and AOL News (20.9 million) were the next sites on the list. After those four , there was a very significant drop off in traffic. The next news site on the list was Internet Broadcasting (11 million), an aggregation of television news sites. 3

Top Online News Sites (comScore)

January 2005-December 2005.

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Source: comScore Media Metrix

As in 2004, "traditional" journalism brands still seem to hold the most appeal, judging by audience numbers. The Internet has long been known for a seemingly unlimited number of news sites from across the political spectrum. The most popular sites, however, are generally associated with the media establishment. Of the top 20 Nielsen//NetRatings sites in 2005, 17 were associated with traditional news companies — those that produce most of their content offline for newspapers, television, or magazines.

Madison Avenue has followed the audience trends, with more and more branding dollars going to the largest portals, such as Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. According to Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the 50 largest Web companies attract 96% of all ad spending, with most going to the biggest of the big: AOL, Yahoo, Google and MSN.4