More Americans Reading Entertainment News Online, With Much of it Occurring During Work Hours
RESTON, Va., July 1, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a report on visitation and video viewership at entertainment news sites based on data from the comScore Media Metrix and comScore Video Metrix services. Nearly 55 million Americans visited an entertainment news site in May 2009, representing a 7-percent increase versus the previous year. Online video has also become an increasingly important channel for content in the category, with the number of videos viewed growing 53 percent in the past year.
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"With more than one out of every four U.S. Internet users visiting an entertainment news site each month, it's clear that following entertainment and celebrity culture has become a popular online pastime," said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. "What's also interesting is that Americans are feeding their hunger for celebrity gossip by 'snacking' on these news updates throughout the workday. In fact, nearly half of all time spent on entertainment news sites comes from work computers."
Time Spent in Entertainment News Category by Location
May 2009
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Entertainment - News
All Home Work
Locations
Total Minutes (MM) 893 502 391
Share of Minutes 100.0% 56.2% 43.8%
In total, Americans spent more than 893 million minutes - or approximately 15 million hours - on entertainment news sites, with 44 percent of the total time spent in the category occurring at work.
Entertainment News Sites Compete for Growing Audience
More than one-quarter of U.S. Internet users visited an entertainment news site in May 2009. omg!, Yahoo!'s celebrity gossip site, led the category with 20.6 million visitors, nearly doubling its audience in the past year. TMZ captured the #2 ranking with 9.9 million visitors (up 7 percent versus year ago), followed by People with 8.2 million visitors. Significant gains were experienced by USmagazine.com, up 325 percent to 6.5 million visitors, Entertainment Weekly, up 64 percent to nearly 4 million visitors, and The Insider, which grew 215 percent to 2.5 million visitors.
Visitation to Entertainment News Category
May 2009 vs. May 2008
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
May-08 May-09 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 190,858 193,825 2
Entertainment - News 51,285 54,946 7
omg! 12,512 20,654 65
TMZ 9,243 9,930 7
People 9,170 8,285 -10
USMagazine.com 1,542 6,559 325
Entertainment Weekly 2,394 3,923 64
E! Online 4,017 3,759 -6
About.com Entertainment 3,530 3,243 -8
TheInsider.com 801 2,522 215
PerezHilton.com 2,505 2,457 -2
AccessHollywood.com 1,478 2,268 53
"May was one of the heaviest months on record for entertainment news consumption, but it will almost certainly be surpassed in June with the shocking news of Michael Jackson's death driving high volumes of traffic to these sites," added Mr. Flanagan. "While most entertainment news sites will see gains in June, TMZ is primed for an especially big month as the first outlet to report the news, which generated thousands of inbound links to the site."
Entertainment News Sites See Potential in Online Video
In April 2009, 34.8 million videos were viewed on entertainment news sites, an increase of 52 percent versus year ago. TMZ led the category with 2 million video viewers and 10.3 million videos viewed. More than 1.7 million viewers watched 3.8 million videos at omg!, while ETOnline.com served 3.9 million videos to 1.5 million viewers in April.
Online Video Viewing in the Entertainment News Category
April 2009
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Video Metrix
Property Unique Videos
Viewers
(000) (000)
Total Internet : Total Audience 151,652 16,785,432
Entertainment - News 9,889 34,781
TMZ 2,056 10,284
omg! 1,729 3,762
ETOnline.com 1,474 3,928
PerezHilton.com 700 2,585
AccessHollywood.com 566 1,062
E! Online 495 899
TheHollywoodVoice.com 263 509
SoapOperaDigest.com 248 557
StarPulse.com 235 400
Entertainment Weekly 199 581
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