2004 Annual Report - Online Audience

In the battle between Fox and CNN for cable television news supremacy, one point of contention is time versus people. Television ratings measure sets at any given moment, but they cannot tell whether the people watching one program during the day are the same as those watching another later on. On television, Fox cable news is currently winning the ratings war. But CNN argues its overall television audience through the day is larger than Fox's, because more distinct individuals (the television equivalent of unique visitors) sample CNN, while Fox has a smaller loyal audience that watches more hours of the day. (See Cable)

The Web, with its more detailed audience numbers, sheds light on the debate. Online, Fox's audience is smaller but apparently sticks around longer. CNN's is bigger but apparently sticks around a little less.

Indeed, FoxNews.com commands the highest time spent per average visitor, just over 36 minutes for the first 11 months of 2003. In April 2003, during the war, FoxNews.com averaged more than 51 minutes per unique visitor, more than 15 minutes higher than any of the other top 20 sites and a full half-hour more than the average.²⁵

CNN.com averages slightly less time per user (29.7 minutes). That ties it for third place with AOL in most time spent. But, when it comes to the number of visitors, the relationship flips. CNN.com has four times more visitors than FoxNews.com. Fox failed to crack the top 10 most visited Web sites in 2003 and has hovered around the 15th spot on the list.²⁶