While the Q3 earnings of most newspaper publishers showed the usual “declining print/rising online dynamic” for revenues and readership, a study from the Newspaper Association of America attempts to offer an abstract of how these shifting readers relate to their daily papers and their related websites through their various purchases and buying plans. In terms of just traffic, the NAA, citing Nielsen//NetRatings, found that unique visits to newspaper sites was up a slight 3.7 percent to 59 million people from the 56.9 million in Q306. The 59 million figure represents 37.1 percent of all active internet users, the NAA noted.

The NAA’s report, Newspaper Footprint: Total Audience in Print and Online (PDF), contains NAA analysis of Scarborough Research newspaper audience data, based on the surveys of 220,000 adults a year, which indicates that nearly eight in 10 adults (77 percent) read a newspaper in print or online each week. The survey also looked into consumers’ shopping habits with regard to newspapers, both print and online.  Other findings included:

-- Newspaper website visitors generated 2.8 billion pageviews every month throughout the quarter, compared with slightly more than 2.5 billion during the same period last year.

-- Newspapers’ weekly footprint reached more than eight in 10 adults (82 percent) who made online purchases in the last year.

-- About 81 percent of those planning to spend $35,000 or more on a new car read a newspaper in print or online in the last seven days.

-- Newspapers’ weekly footprint reaches 84 percent of adults with a home valued at $300,000 or more. Release

• Traffic Trends To News Websites: Newspaper Sites Flatlining?
• Online Ad Spend To Overtake Newspapers By 2011: Report
• Online Newspaper Ad Revs Up 19.3 Percent In Q2, But Signs Of Slowdown Are Clear
• Online Newspaper Audience Rising Twice As Fast As General Internet Population: Report
• NAA: Traffic To Newspaper Sites Up 30 Percent In 1H06