Newspaper Web sites attracted a record 68.3 million unique visitors in the third quarter, a 15.8% increase compared with the same period last year, according to the Newspaper Association of America. The third quarter figure is equal to 41.4% of all Web users. In addition, newspaper Web sites generated an average of a little more than 3.5 billion page views per month throughout the third quarter, a jump of 25.2% compared with the same period in 2007. These figures are the highest for any quarter since NAA began tracking the data in 2004. Despite the surge in readership online, newspaper companies are still having a tough time monetizing their Web sites. While third-quarter revenue figures are not yet available, total newspaper online revenues for the second quarter fell 2.4%, to $777 million, according to the NAA. That marked the first such reversal since the NAA began tracking Web revenue separately in 2003. The reason? Most of the initial growth online was due to “up-sells” from print classified listings; and with print listings starting to crater, there’s less opportunity for online “up-sells.”
