A recent study done for the Newspaper Association of America by Minnesota Opinion Research Inc. found that news websites are viewed more than TV and radio between 8A and 11A. In fact, the study states that the Internet is five times more effective then TV in reaching consumers in the AM.
“With online connectivity rapidly approaching a state of plateau — 67 percent of all U.S. adults are online — growth in frequency and in new dayparts will play the biggest role in future online growth in general and especially for online news sites,” said Rusty Coats, MORI’s director of new media.
The study goes on to detail the types of activities and corresponding sites users visit throughout the day based on the time of day. For example:
- By morning, users are almost as interested in news — breaking, local, national, business and sports — as they are in e-mail.
- By afternoon, with the importance of news waning, entertainment-category features such as movie times, maps and directions, and offbeat news are on the rise.
- In the evening, our ability to connect users with jobs, cars and homes becomes central, along with our ability to facilitate their online-shopping needs — from researching products to actually purchasing products.
Dayparting is becoming a serious consideration when buying online media just as it has been for years with TV and radio. In essence, daytime (8A-5P) is the Internet’s Prime Time.
