It appears that blogs are becoming a major traffic driver for newspapers. The number of visitors to the blogs at the top 10 online versions of newspaper grew 210% from December 2005 to the same month in 2006. But, total traffic to newspaper sites rose only 9%. Blog content now accounts for 13% of total traffic at these online paper sites.
At USAToday.com (GCI), blog pages drove an audience of over 1.2 million visitors in December. At NYTimes.com (NYT), that number was 1.17 million. According to Nielsen-Netratings, the New York Times sites had 44.2 million unique visitors in December, but that includes visits to sites other than NYTimes.com.
To says that newspaper companies are desperate is an understatement. The Tribune Company (TRB) cannot get bids for its assets that are above the company’s current market value. Over the last two years, Gannett’s shares have fallen from $82 to $58. Shares in The New York Times Company has fallen from over $40 to under $24 over the same period.
The newspaper blog. Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Online newspapers need more audience. They better hope blogs are a superman.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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