NBC’s broadcast of the 2008 Beijing Olympics again claimed the top slot in Nielsen’s ranking of primetime telecasts for Wednesday, August 20, 2008.
CBS’s “CSI: NY” and “Criminal Minds” rounded out the top three.

RANK
NAME
NETWORK
VIEWERS (P2+)

1
SUM OLYM WED PRIME 2(S)-08/20/2008
NBC
24,755,000

2
CSI: NY
CBS
6,055,000

3
CRIMINAL MINDS
CBS
5,918,000

4
AL DIABLO CON GUAPOS WED
UNI
5,056,000

5
GREATEST AMERICAN DOG
CBS
4,993,000

6
BONES SP-8/20 8P(S)-08/20/2008
FOX
4,760,000

7
FUEGO EN LA SANGRE WED
UNI
4,516,000

8
PRIMETIME: CRIME
ABC
4,086,000

9
SUPERNANNY
ABC
3,711,000

10
WIFE SWAP
ABC
3,346,000

Source: The Nielsen Company (August 20, 2008)

Overall, NBC won the night with an average audience of just under 24.8 million viewers, while CBS took second place with almost 5.7 million average viewers.  Univision and FOX claimed third …

Coupon clipping is on the rise, according to Nielsen.
In June, a Nielsen survey of 50,000 consumers found that nearly one-third used grocery coupons once a week or more.  In December 2007, just one-fourth of those surveyed were clipping coupons at that rate, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Thursday. 
According to a separate study by Scarborough Research, a joint partnership with Nielsen and Arbitron, Milwaukee residents reported the highest rates of coupon clipping — 40% of all city households use grocery coupons once a week or more. 
Rochester, NY ranked second, with 38% of …

With the national political conventions starting next week, pundits and the general public, alike, are scrutinizing Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s campaign strategies.
On Thursday, Nielsen joined the fray, releasing an analysis of the candidates’ online presence and buzz, their advertising campaigns, and TV viewership for past conventions. 
Online Audience and Videos Viewed
BarackObama.com’s unique audience was twice as large as JohnMcCain.com’s in both June and July 2008.  However, in July, the number of video streams on JohnMcCain.com more than doubled, possibly due to press coverage around Senator John McCain’s ad that compared …

More than half-way through the 2008 Beijing Olympics, U.S. fans are continuing to follow the Games online in strong numbers, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
The top two U.S.-based Olympics online destinations, Yahoo Olympics and NBC Olympics, drew an average of 4.7 million and 4.3 million unique visitors each day between August 8 and August 18.
According to Nielsen, Olympics-related websites in the U.S. are drawing slightly larger audiences on work days than weekends. 
Nielsen also reported that daily traffic to NBC’s Olympics site typically peaked at noon during the first work week of the …

NBC’s broadcast of the 2008 Beijing Olympics again claimed the top slot in Nielsen’s ranking of primetime telecasts for Tuesday, August 19, 2008.
CBS’s “NCIS” and “Big Brother” rounded out the top three.

RANK
NAME
NETWORK
VIEWERS (P2+)

1
SUM OLYM TUE PRIME 2(S)-08/19/2008
NBC
26,629,000

2
NCIS
CBS
7,610,000

3
BIG BROTHER 10-TUE
CBS
6,117,000

4
WIPEOUT
ABC
5,214,000

5
AL DIABLO CON GUAPOS TUE
UNI
4,668,000

6
WITHOUT A TRACE
CBS
4,555,000

7
PRIMETIME: MED MYST-8/19(S)-08/19/2008
ABC
4,376,000

8
FUEGO EN LA SANGRE TUE
UNI
4,191,000

9
HOUSE-TUE 8P
FOX
3,302,000

10
WANNA BET
ABC
3,106,000

Source: The Nielsen Company (August 19, 2008)

Overall, NBC won the night with an average audience of 26.6 million viewers, while CBS took second place with almost 6.1 million average viewers.  ABC and Univision claimed third and fourth places …

Top U.S. newspaper websites saw more visits in July 2008 versus July 2007, but visitors spent less time on many of the sites, Editor & Publisher reported this week.
Nineteen of the top 30 newspaper websites recorded double-digit, year-over-year percentage increases in unique traffic in July, according to data from Nielsen Online.

Rank
Top 10 Websites
(ranked by unique users)
2008
Unique Traffic
2007 vs. 2008
% Change

1
NYTimes.com
19,513,000
38%

2
USATODAY.com
10,404,000
-2%

3
Washingtonpost.com
8,935,000
-2%

4
LA Times
8,750,000
66%

5
Wall Street Journal Online
8,716,000
94%

6
New York Post
4,937,000
25%

7
Boston.com
4,891,000
21%

8
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle
4,503,000
25%

9
Daily News Online Edition
4,301,000
66%

10
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
3,985,000
64%

Source: The Nielsen Company (July 1 – July 31, 2008 and July 1 – July 31, 2007)

Ottaway Newspapers (+167%) …

Photo District News, Nielsen Business Media’s award-winning monthly magazine covering the professional photography industry, has revamped the look and feel of its website, PDNonline.com. 
The magazine unveiled its redesigned site on Wednesday. 
The new site provides improved navigation and search capabilities, new multimedia content, and forums for readers to exhange ideas and provide feedback.  
The Resource Center, a new offering on the site, also provides a complete archive of the magazine’s “how to” features.
View the full press release.

Sales at UK grocery stores increased 5.8% year-over-year during the latest three-month period ending August 9, 2008, with food inflation continuing to drive the sector’s growth. 
Sales were strongest at large, out-of-town supermarkets, where 7% year-over-year growth was recorded.  In contrast, sales growth at large, centrally-located grocery stores slowed to just 1% year-over-year.
Food retailers who trade on value and price propositions also performed well.  Iceland saw 13% year-over-year sales growth, while Morrisons grew by 9.1% over the same three-month period last year. 
View the full press release.

Google (60.2% search share) and Yahoo! (17.4% search share) were the number one- and number two-ranked online search providers in the U.S. for July, according to Nielsen Online. 
AT&T Worldnet Search showed the largest year-over-year growth (+210%) for that time period. 

Provider
Searches
(in 000’s)
Year-Over-Year
Growth
Share
of Searches

All Search
7,996,956
3%
100.0%

Google Search
4,812,974
16%
60.2%

Yahoo! Search
1,393,723
-11%
17.4%

MSN/Windows Live Search
951,882
-10%
11.9%

AOL Search
369,611
-9%
4.6%

Ask.com Search
162,337
13%
2.0%

Comcast Search
45,511
22%
0.6%

My Web Search
43,085
-38%
0.5%

AT&T Worldnet Search
33,128
210%
0.4%

NexTag Search
21,218
5%
0.3%

Dogpile.com Search
17,270
-33%
0.2%

Source: The Nielsen Company (July 1, 2008 – July 31, 2008)

Search providers are ranked by the total number of search queries conducted at the provider.
Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings on CNET, Silicon Alley Insider, and in Mediaweek. 

New Zealanders are now more likely to surf the Web via broadband — rather than dial-up service, according to a new report released Tuesday by Nielsen.
The report found that in 2007, 54% of New Zealanders accessed the Internet via broadband — a significant increase that matches improvements in the country’s broadband coverage during the same time period.
Online social networking has also experienced growth in New Zealand, according to Nielsen.  As of the end of 2007, nearly half of all New Zealanders had visited Bebo, the country’s most popular social networking site.  …