NY Times, USA Today & SF Gate Gain in "TOS"

(MoneyWatch)  As we've often noted here, one of the most important metrics for a media site's importance is time-on-site (TOS). As a stand-alone metric, it is not particularly significant, but if it's allowing a company to monetize content, either through ad page views, a free registration + demographics upsell, or a partner integration (via widgets, etc.), this measure of stickiness is one of those major objectives all media execs should be striving for.

With this in mind, it's worth examining Nielsen Online's latest TOS figures for the Top Ten newspaper websites, year over year.

Company Nov. 2008 Nov. 2007

1. NYTimes.com 0:36:32 0:29:03
2. LA Times 0:07:07 0:09:39
3. washingtonpost.com 0:14:15 0:15:15
4. USATODAY.com 0:15:58 0:14:17
5. Wall Street Journal Online 0:11:57 0:12:49
6. Daily News Online Edition 0:05:29 0:07:09
7. Boston.com 0:13:27 0:16:28
8. Chicago Tribune 0:07:12 0:11:42
9. New York Post 0:09:55 0:11:00
10. SFGate.com(SFC) 0:12:05 0:11:10

So, that translates into three companies improving their performance (NYT, USAToday, and SFGate) and seven going backwards. If you want to expand this list and look at the next 20 largest newspaper websites, the bottom line is seven doing better and thirteen doing worse.

So, overall, among the top 30 newspaper websites in the U.S., only one-third (10) are keeping users on their sites longer than they did a year ago. This not the kind of trend that gives encouragement to those who hope digital editions will help save our daily newspaper industry.

But for those doing well, it's cause for congratulations entering a new year!