Visitors flock to traditional brand news sites

The audience for news and information sites is growing at a faster rate than for the rest of web, according to new research.

The study, by US firm Jupiter Media Metrix, shows that from July 2000 to July 2001 traffic for news sites grew by 14.7 per cent, compared with 12.3 per cent growth for rest of the internet.

The number of monthly visitors to WashingtonPost.com and LATimes.com, grew 50 per cent in the last year, while the audiences for NYTimes.com grew two-thirds and CNN.com grew 83 per cent.

However, the picture was not so rosy for smaller sites, with the well-established ones gaining much more.

"National sites will get more and more of a share of the news audience and the smaller sites will get less and less," predicted Vin Crosbie, president of the consulting firm Digital Deliverance.

He added that most people still get their news from traditional media. However, new-media users - who tend to be younger - are increasingly searching for traditional media online.

For more information, please click here and here

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).