2005 Annual Report - Online Ownership

While the Internet allows for a nearly infinite choice of news outlets, in practice a few sites dominate, and in 2004 they appeared to be separating themselves even more from the rest of the Web.

Two organizations are the central sources for online traffic figures, Nielsen//Net Ratings and Comscore MediaMetrix. Both show surges in 2004 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 69.6 million visitors per month from January through October 2004.¹

Unique Audience for Top 20 News and Information Sites

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Source: Nielsen//Net Ratings

These numbers have changed from our original calculations which at times double counted visitors. These revised numbers come directly from Nielsen//Net Ratings and include no duplicated audience figures.

When it comes to who is at the top of the top, both Nielsen//Net Ratings and comScore show three sites dominating between January and October 2004. CNN, Yahoo News and MSNBC, each averaged around 20 million unique visitors a month in the first ten months of 2004. A fourth site, AOL, is either in line with these other three or slightly below them depending on whose traffic numbers are used.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings data, CNN led the way with 23 million, followed by Yahoo News with 21.4 million and MSNBC with 21 million. AOL News, according to these figures, trails behind with 14.4 million unique visitors, a figure quite different than that reported by comScore. ComScore reports Yahoo! in the lead with an average of 23.2 million, followed by AOL News at 22.6 million. CNN and MSNBC then follow with 21.3 million and 19.3 million, respectively.²

Top Online News Sites (Nielsen)

An average of January to October 2004 monthly unique visitors

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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.

After that there was a huge dropoff in traffic - an average of around 7.1 million visitors a month. Through October of 2004, Yahoo News showed the most growth among the top three sites since 2003, up 27%. CNN was up 15% and MSNBC 3%.

"Traditional" journalism brands still seem to hold the most appeal. Of the top 25 Nielsen//NetRatings sites from January to October 2004, 17 were associated with traditional news companies - those that produce their own offline content for newspapers, television, or magazines.

Top Online News Sites (comScore)

An average of January 2004-October 2004 monthly data. All Persons at U.S. Home/Work/College-University Locations.

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Source: comScore Media Metrix

comScore policy deletes historical data when a site’s make-up changes to a degree that they feel makes current figures incomparable to earlier figures. Thus, AOL News data and Tribune data are from April – October.

Five sites are unique and cannot be linked to traditional offline news providers. The three sites that aggregate data from other news services and do not do any original reporting are AOL News, Yahoo! News, and Google News. AOL News and Yahoo! News use editors who post stories from other news services and do not do any original reporting. And while Google News also offers a considerable number of wire stories from other news sources, it does not use human editors but rather an algorithm to find articles, and a specific search often turns up material from outside the mainstream news pool.

A second category among news sites not linked to traditional offline news providers comprises those that produce Internet-only content, such as Drudge Report and Slate.

And the last category is those sites that produce local online news content: Advance Internet, World Now and Internet Broadcasting Systems.

In short, despite the attention paid to blogs and the openness of the Internet, when it comes to sheer numbers, online news appears dominated by a handful of traditional big media sites, and for now that domination appears to be increasing.