Americans Were Highly Engaged in Presidential Election at the Polls and on the Web, According to Nielsen Online

Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, announced today that Web traffic to the Current Events and Global News category grew 27 percent on Election Day over the previous Tuesday. Page views and time per person for the category also increased, 103 percent and 61 percent, respectively. In the finale of the first truly digital presidential campaign, with a record turnout of more than 136 million Americans casting votes, voters flocked online to follow news and election results and to play with electoral college math.

 Table 1: Current Events and Global News Category Growth on Election Day Compared to Prior Week                                    Oct. 28     Nov. 4     Growth                                    ——–   ——–   ——– Unique Audience (000)                33,461     42,380         27% Page Views (000)                    427,385    868,310        103% Time per Person (hh:mm:ss)         00:12:22   00:19:51         61% Source: Nielsen Online, Custom Analysis Table 2: Top Online Current Events and Global News Destinations on Election Day Name                           Oct. 28 UA (000)  Nov. 4 UA (000)   % Change                                —————-  —————   ——– 1. CNN Digital Network                    8,496           12,847        51% 2. MSNBC Digital Network                  5,959           12,114       103% 3. Yahoo! News                            7,649           11,440        50% 4. Fox News Digital Network               3,937            5,745        46% 5. AOL News                               4,050            4,411         9% 6. NYTimes.com                            2,480            3,501        41% 7. Google News                            2,053            3,255        59% 8. Tribune Newspapers                     2,717            2,911         7% 9. washingtonpost.com                     1,086            2,309       113% 10. USATODAY.com                          1,326            2,009        52% Source: Nielsen Online, Custom Analysis 

Obama Buzz Soars Day after Election

In the wake of winning the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Senator Barack Obama was mentioned in nearly 20 percent of all blog discussions on Wednesday. In comparison, Senator John McCain was referenced by just 6.3 percent of all blog entries posted on November 5th.

Campaign Web Sites Still Going Strong

Supporters of Obama and McCain continued to visit their respective campaign Web sites for updates, even on Election Day itself. Obama’s site had 1.2 million unique visitors and McCain’s site had 479,000 unique visitors on decision day.

About Nielsen Online:

Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, delivers comprehensive, independent measurement and analysis of online audiences, advertising, video, consumer-generated media, word of mouth, commerce and consumer behavior, and includes products previously marketed under the Nielsen//NetRatings and Nielsen BuzzMetrics brands. With high quality, technology-driven products and services, Nielsen Online enables clients to make informed business decisions regarding their Internet, digital and marketing strategies. For more information, please visit www.nielsen-online.com. Also, visit our blog at www.nielsen-online.com/blog.

About The Nielsen Company:

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com.

Editor’s Note: Please source all data to Nielsen Online.

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 Media Contacts: Suzy Bausch (415) 617-0181 Michelle McGiboney (408) 941-2930 pr.us@nielsen.com

SOURCE: The Nielsen Company