Stunning Online Growth For Magazines & Newspapers

The top 320 magazine web sites received on average 67.5 million unique visitors per month during the fourth quarter of 2007—an 8.1% jump from the same period in 2006, according to data collected by Nielsen Online and compiled by the Magazine Publishers of America. That's a faster rate of growth than the Internet overall, where the total U.S. online population rose 2.4% year-over-year.

These figures mean that magazine web sites reached almost 42% of the total U.S. online population of about 160 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 7.1% over last year's reach. These users generated 434.4 million visits in the fourth quarter—up 12.3%. While time spent increased 5.5%, to an average 1.78 billion minutes per month, implying an average visit duration of just over four minutes.

In terms of unique visitors per month, magazine web sites bested newspapers, where the total unique audience for newspaper sites increased 9% in the fourth quarter to an average 62.8 million per month.

These figures, also collected by Nielsen Online, show that 39% of all active web users visited newspaper sites during the fourth quarter, yielding over 3 billion impressions—up 7.3% from the fourth quarter of 2006.