Consumers set up a blockbuster holiday season at the Box Office
omg! Ranked as Most Visited Entertainment News Site with Nearly 21 Million Visitors in May
TMZ Boasts Highest Online Video Viewership in Category
RESTON, VA, July 1, 2009 – 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 MMX 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.
“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 LocationMay 2009Total U.S. – Home/Work/University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Entertainment - News
All Locations
Home
Work
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 CategoryMay 2009 vs. May 2008Total U.S. – Home/Work/University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Total Unique Visitors (000)
May-08
May-09
% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience
190,858
193,825
2
51,285
54,946
7
omg!
12,512
20,654
65
TMZ
9,243
9,930
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 CategoryApril 2009Total U.S. – Home/Work/University LocationsSource: Comscore Video Metrix
Property
Unique Viewers
(000)
Videos
151,652
16,785,432
9,889
34,781
2,056
10,284
1,729
3,762
ETOnline.com
1,474
3,928
700
2,585
566
1,062
495
899
TheHollywoodVoice.com
263
509
SoapOperaDigest.com
248
557
StarPulse.com
235
400
199
581
About ComscoreComscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
Contact:Sarah RadwanickDirector, Regional Product MarketingComscore, Inc. +44 (0) 20 7099 1784worldpress@comscore.com