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News and Media Traffic to Video Sites Up 196 Percent

 Hitwise News and Media Report: Search Engines and Gossip Blogs Impact News Consumption Patterns

NEW YORK, NY– May 1, 2007 – Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, announced today that the share of traffic leaving the News and Media industry for Multimedia sites increased by 196 percent from April 2006 to March 2007. This and other findings were released today in the Hitwise US News and Media Report, which examines recent trends in online news consumption.

Major news events such as the death of Steve Irwin and the execution of Saddam Hussein served to drive the increase in traffic between News and Media and Multimedia websites. After both deaths were announced, the share of traffic from News and Media websites going to video websites nearly doubled as Internet users fed their curiosity by seeking videos showing the untimely death of the "Crocodile Hunter" and the hanging of the former Iraqi president.

Google Grows as a Source of Traffic for News Websites

Search engines, particularly Google, are responsible for more News and Media category website traffic than ever before. Print News websites received 29.7 percent more traffic from Google in March 2007 than in March 2006, and Broadcast Media sites received 35.9 percent more traffic from Google in the same time period. News Aggregators (such as Yahoo! News, Google News, and Drudge Report) and portals were also significant sources of traffic for News and Media websites.

Gossip Blogs Reshape Celebrity News

The market share of visits to the top 20 celebrity gossip blogs grew 42 percent from November 2006 to March 2007 as Internet users sought uncensored and up to the minute information on events involving Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith. PerezHilton.com was one of the fastest growing sites in this category, and increased in market share of visits by 621 percent from March 2006 to March 2007.

"News events in 2006 exposed Internet users to emerging sources of online information," said LeeAnn Prescott, director of research at Hitwise and author of the report.
"Search engines were more likely to be the first step for Internet users in their search for information about breaking events, and search engine results from news video services, video sites like YouTube, and blogs were more likely to contain the information they sought, thus hastening the growth of non-traditional news sources."

Other key findings from the report include:

• The market share of visits to the top 10 News and Media websites declined by 3.8 percent from March 2006 to March 2007, indicating that news consumption is beginning to fragment as users expand their range of news sources to non-traditional news websites.
• Digg is a social news website that has succeeded in attracting a young, tech-focused base of users. The bulk of its downstream traffic went to Entertainment, News and Media, and Blog websites in March 2007, but it does not yet serve as a significant source of traffic to the News and Media industry.
• Local news consumption experienced an evolution with the rise of Topix, a local news aggregator and community website. Its market share of visits increased by 81 percent from March 2006 to March 2007, and it showed above average representation with users in rural states such as Kentucky and South Dakota, indicating its success in engaging users in local communities in the US.

To receive a copy of the report please visit:
http://www.hitwise.com/registration-page/us-news-media.php

For updated data on the topics discussed in the report please visit: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/leeann-prescott/

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology captures the anonymous online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends and statistics, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com  and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.