December 20, 2002
Online News Audience - Newspapers Still Have Half
How you interpret the latest report on news web sites depends on whether you're a half-full or half-empty kind of person.
The Nielsen/Net Ratings online audience survey for November found that half of the top 20 online news sites are operated by newspaper companies. The others belong to broadcasters or aggregators.
Editor & Publisher ran the story under the headline "Newspapers Run Half Of Top News Sites." That's the optimistic view. The headline could have easily read: Newspapers Run Only Half Of Top News Sites.
Either headline is misleading because the survey grouped all of a company's news sites into one entry, meaning that four of the 10 "newspapers" on the list were Gannett, Hearst, McClatchy and Cox. It would be more informative to know how those companies' individual papers ranked.
Regardless, no newspaper placed in the top five sites - MSNBC, CNN, AOL News, Yahoo News, and ABC News. No. 6 was the New York Times.
Links
Editor & Publisher Newspapers Run Half Of Top News Sites