The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and washingtonpost.com took top honors in Scarborough Research’s biannual Newspaper Penetration Report.  According to the survey, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle’s print edition was read by 78 percent of the adults in the market.  It also took the top spot in the Integrated Newspaper Audience rankings, which measures the percent of adults in a market who read the newspaper in print form, on the Internet, or did both during the past week, with 80 percent.
Washingtonpost.com was the leading newspaper website, with 24 percent of adults in …

Advertising spending around the world dropped 7.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, according to Nielsen’s Global AdView Pulse.  European countries were hit the hardest, with ad spending down in Spain 28.2 percent, Ireland down 21.2 percent and Italy down 19.1 percent.  The U.S. recorded a decline of 12.7 percent.  Ad spending in Asia Pacific was down just 2.3 percent in the first quarter.  Indonesia actually recorded growth of 19.1 percent due largely to the elections there, while China’s growth slowed to …

The economic decline has affected most parts of the world, but some have been hit harder than others.  One region that seems to be holding its own is Asia Pacific (APAC).  Although consumer confidence in APAC has declined in recent months, those declines have generally not been as steep as in Europe or North America.  Eight of the twelve markets for which Nielsen tracks ad spending posted growth in 2008 over 2007.  That said, most of the markets were registering declines by the fourth quarter.
Main media, defined by Nielsen as …

As the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism were announced, Nielsen Online released data on unique visitors to online news sites for March 2009. MSNBC, CNN, and Yahoo! News led the way, with each showing gains over last year’s traffic numbers. The BBC (up 61%), Fox News (up 48%) and McClatchy Newspaper Network (up 20%) reported solid gains while, Gannett Newspapers (down 11%), USA Today and CBS News (both down 7%) slid down from last year’s mark. The NY Times, which led all outlets with five Pulitzers, drew 7% more visitors than …

Rochester, NY, is the top U.S. city for newspaper readership, according to a new analysis of Integrated Newspaper Audience (INA) data from Scarborough Research, a partnership between Arbitron and The Nielsen Company. A higher percentage of adults in Rochester, NY, are reading newspapers in print or online than in any other U.S. market. The INA of Rochester is 87% – meaning that 87% of adults in the Rochester DMA read a printed newspaper, a newspaper’s website, or did both during the past week. Following closely behind are Cleveland, OH and …

Nielsen Online analyst Jon Gibs takes a look at the news and newspaper industry in his latest post and welcomes your input.
“The economic situation we’re in has had many casualties, banks, the housing market, free soda, the works. But one of the most notable has been newspapers. I’ve posted in the past on the fate of the Christian Science Monitor, and the Rocky Mountain News has now said its goodbye as well. I think it is safe to say that these are not the end of a trend; they are …

According to Nielsen, in November, NYTimes.com was the top U.S.-based online newspaper site, while MSNBC Digital Network (MSNBC) was the top online current events and news destination, Editor & Publisher reported this week.
The NY Times’ website drew just over 20 million unique visitors in November — a 10% increase over unique traffic to the site last November.

When it comes to entertainment consumption, all U.S. cities are not created equal.
Take Atlanta, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco – five of 21 cities that are home to some of the nation’s most voracious media consumers.  According to a study of entertainment consumption in 65 major U.S. cities, released Monday by Nielsen PreView, residents of these cities love opening weekend movie-going, rock concerts, reality TV, and newspapers.
In contrast, residents of Bakersfield (California), El Paso, Flint/Saginaw/Bay City (Michigan), Memphis, Miami/Fort Lauderdale, and San Antonio have one-track entertainment minds: …

Editor & Publisher reported Wednesday that more than 80% of the top online newspapers in the U.S. recorded increases in the number of unique visitors to their websites during June — compared to the same month a year ago, according to Nielsen Online.
New York’s Daily News Online saw the largest percentage gain — its audience grew by 109% year-over-year to 3.8 million unique visitors in June.  Michigan-based MLive.com rose 80% to 1.5 million unique visitors, while sites owned by two New York City-based news outlets, Newsday and Village Voice Media, saw audience …