From Comscore.com full story here

Nearly 50 Percent of Internet Users in Europe Visit Newspaper Sites

comScore Releases Overview of European Internet Usage for November 2011

LONDON, UK, 19 January 2012 - comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of Internet usage in Europe, showing that 379.4 million Europeans went online in November 2011 for an average of 27.8 hours per person. This release highlights Internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated into the European region and provides individual reporting on 18 markets. Amongst its findings, the study also showed that 47.8 percent of Europeans visit Newspaper sites, with a notable percentage of visits to the top 5 Newspaper sites preceded by a visit to Facebook.

Nearly 1 in 2 Europeans Visit Newspaper Sites
In November 2011, 181.5 million unique people in Europe visited Newspaper sites, an increase of 9 percent from the previous year. The Daily Mail continued to attract the largest audience at 20.1 million unique visitors, followed by the Guardian at 15.7 million unique visitors. Turkish newspapers Hürriyet and Milliyet and German newspaper Bild rounded out the top five Newspaper properties, with each attracting approximately 10 million unique visitors.

Top 10 Print Media Websites - November 2010

Maybe it is just because of where I live (Connecticut) but this is a little bit hard for me to believe, primarily because so many local TV stations do such a poor job reporting the news, it is hard to imagine that consumers of news have an appetite for more. Full story here

Broadcast TV Stations Outpaced Newspapers in Interactive Sales in 2009

NEW YORK, April 20, 2010 -- Web sales growth at broadcast TV stations outpaced newspapers in 2009 as broadcasters gained ground against their principal in-market competitors and posted an 8.7 percent share of all local online advertising, according to a report released today by the Television Bureau of Advertising at a press breakfast at Gannett Broadcasting’s offices in New York. Total online ad revenue for stations hit $1.1 billion last year, a 10% increase over the previous year, and the report forecast that revenues would grow another 21 percent in 2010.

Jack Poor, VP – strategic planning at TVB, said, “In a year where the IAB reported flat internet revenues, the performance of local TV stations is quite stunning.”

“Benchmarking: TV Web Sites Defy Gravity” examines revenue sources, growth rates, site traffic and other interactive issues and offers benchmarking for stations in large, medium and small markets. The research was conducted by Borrell Associates, which tracks interactive advertising for more than 4,400 local websites in the U.S. and Canada through voluntary submission of data. This is the fifth year Borrell has conducted the benchmarking report for TVB. This year’s report focuses on data submitted by 573 TV stations.

Top 10 Print Media Websites - April 2010

The blog post below, from the Suburban Newspaper Association of America, unintentionally offers the perfect illustration of the illogical thinking of many publications in regards to pay walls on web sites. On one hand, the author, Deb Shaw, points out that newspapers are the primary initiators of local content and that other mediums, including citizen-written efforts and blogs are ill equipped to displace newspapers in this role. On the other hand, the author ominously quotes a survey showing that most Americans want their news for free and would search elsewhere for content if it was not given away free by publications.

Search where? If local newspapers are not writing it, readers can search all they want, it won't exist. I want a new car to be free but no matter how many auto dealers I go to the darn things still cost money. Besides, am I missing something, hasn't the last 10 years taught publications that the cost of creating content and distributing it free on websites outweighs the revenue that can be generated by online ads of any form? On some level it is supply and demand- online advertisers are buying traffic and there are so many online opportunities that supply online has far outstripped demand, thereby deflating ad rates and that will make it tough for originally produced free content to be paid for entirely by paid advertising anytime in the near future. 

If you disagree with me and want to read more of the "give-it-away-free-because-someday-traffic-will-result-in-revenue" philosophy go to the SNA's website, here.

Weathering The Perfect Storm