Nielsen Wire » current events websites http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire Consumer Insights, News, Research & Reports Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:19:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 At Polls And Online, Americans Joined Election Day Fray http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/at-polls-and-online-americans-joined-election-day-fray/ http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/at-polls-and-online-americans-joined-election-day-fray/#comments Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:32:24 +0000 admin http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=4303 Surging online activity on Election Day accompanied record voter turn-out at the polls, as voters flocked to current events and news sites to follow election results.

Web traffic to sites within the “Current Events and Global News” category was up 27% on Election Day, versus the previous Tuesday (Oct. 28), Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.

The candidates’ websites also drew healthy traffic on Election Day.  Obama’s site had 1.2 million unique visitors on Nov. 4, while McCain’s site had 479,000 unique visitors.

Rank
(by
Nov. 4 UA)		 Website Unique Audience:
Oct. 28, 2008
(in 000s)		 Unique Audience:
Nov. 4, 2008
(in 000s)		 % Change
1 CNN Digital Network 8,496 12,847 51%
2 MSNBC Digital Network 5,959 12,114 103%
3 Yahoo! News 7,649 11,440 50%
4 Fox News Digital Network 3,937 5,745 46%
5 AOL News 4,050 4,411 9%
6 NYTimes.com 2,480 3,501 41%
7 Google News 2,053 3,255 59%
8 Tribune Newspapers 2,717 2,911 7%
9 washingtonpost.com 1,086 2,309 113%
10 USATODAY.com 1,326 2,009 52%
Source: Nielsen Online, Custom Analysis (October 28, 2008 and November 4, 2008).

Page views and time-per-person at current events and news websites also increased 103% and 61%, respectively, on Tuesday, according to Nielsen.

  Oct. 28, 2008 Nov. 4, 2008 % Growth
Unique Audience (in 000s) 33,461 42,380 27%
Page Views (in 000s) 427,385 868,310 103%
Time per Person (hh:mm:ss) 0:12:22 0:19:51 61%
Source: Nielsen Online, Custom Analysis (October 28, 2008 and November 4, 2008).

Check out historical unique audience data from Election Day 2004.

View the full media alert.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Ad Age, Silicon Alley Insider, Mediaweek, Media Life magazine, and Direct News.

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