Washingtonpost.com was the leading newspaper website, with 24 percent of adults in the local market visiting the newspaper’s web site in the past week. 

Weekly Print Audience 

 * Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers include Appleton Post-Crescent, Fond du Lac Reporter, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Manitowoc Herald Times Repoter, Oshkosh Northwestern

Weekly Website Audience 

Integrated Newspaper Audience

Read the full press release.

“December was an extremely active month in terms of news.  The economic downturn, and its effects on the holidays and coverage of the incoming presidential administration, among other stories, all helped drive this impressive growth,” said Chuck Schilling, research director, agency & media for Nielsen Online.

Nielsen Online also reported data regarding the top 10 parent companies and top 10 web brands for December.  That information and the full release can be viewed here.

With double-digit growth across most categories measured, South Africans continued to take to the Internet in 2008, and the profile of those doing so is evolving.

Andrew Felbert, of Nielsen Online, said, “Not only are there more people online in South Africa, but they are spending more time online and viewing more content.  Companies and advertisers wishing to get their products and services in front of consumers can no longer ignore the power of the Internet.”

According to the new research:

•    The number of unique browsers and pages viewed increased by 25% between December 2007 and December 2008

•    Total time spent online increase by 45%

•    Males continue to dominate and now comprise 58% of the audience, up from 55% a year ago

•    The audience is aging, with the 50+ age group showing the most growth

•    English is the dominant language, comprising 56% of Unique Browsers — increasing share by almost 2%.  Afrikaans was the second-most dominant language, but showed a decrease of 2%.

•    The fastest growing brands are newspapers – Sunday World, Dispatch, Sowetan and The Herald all showed double or triple digit growth.

View the the full release

Meanwhile, 5.5 million Brits visited at least one of the top 10 magazine websites — up 30% from 4.3 million unique visitors last year.

Among the top 10 newspaper websites, the Guardian’s site was most popular, drawing 3.5 million unique UK visitors in November.  The Mirror (92%), Independent (85%), and Daily Mail (65%) had the largest year-over-year growth.

Among the top 10 magazine websites, Auto Trader was easily the most popular, with 1.8 million unique UK visitors.  BBC Good Food (+153%) and Radio Times (+76%) were the fastest growing online magazines among the top ten.

Most Popular Newspaper Websites (UK Only): November 2008

Most Popular Magazine Websites (UK Only): November 2008

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in New Media Age, Brand Republic, and MediaWeek.

During the second quarter of this year, newspaper sites saw a 12% increase in unique visitors, compared with the same time period a year ago, according to data compiled by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

In all, newspaper sites had a combined average of 66.4 million unique U.S. visitors per month during Q2 2008 — up from 59.2 million in Q2 2007, Nielsen and the NAA reported.