Las Vegas – As newspaper professionals gather in Las Vegas for the Newspaper Association of America's first annual mediaXchange conference, new data from Nielsen Online indicates that average monthly unique audience figures for newspaper Web sites grew by more than 7.9 million in January to 74.8 million visitors, an increase of 11.9 percent over the same period a year ago. These figures, which comprise home and work Internet usage, are the highest for any month since NAA began tracking these numbers in 2004.

"As newspaper executives share multiplatform strategies at mediaXchange, a new report from Nielsen Online indicates that their efforts continue to attract Web visitors in record numbers," said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm. "Throughout January, Americans riveted by a historic presidential inauguration and an unprecedented economic crisis turned to the newspaper brand for information they can trust in difficult times. With challenges facing our industry making headlines, it's important to remember the value our medium, with nearly 105 million daily print readers and a dominating online presence, brings to the table."

January also set records for active reach and page views. More than 44 percent of all active Web users visited newspaper Web sites, an increase of 7.3 percent over the same period a year ago. Those visitors generated more than 3.7 billion page impressions, an increase of 15.4 percent over January 2008. To see data for previous months, please visit

http://www.naa.org/Trends-and-Numbers/NetRatings-Chart.aspx.

The Nielsen Online newspaper total audience represents a de-duplicated visitor total based on its RDD (Random Digit Dial) recruited, combined home and work panel of Internet users (i.e. an individual who might read a national newspaper plus their local newspaper online is only counted once). The target sample (2 years or older) has access from a non-shared PC at work and/or access from home. The Nielsen Online monthly newspaper total represents the de-duplicated reach of a custom list of hundreds of sites collectively.