From MediaPost. 

An average 74 million people visited a newspaper Web site each month in the third quarter of 2009, equaling just under 40% of all active U.S. Internet users, according to the Newspaper Association of America, citing research performed by Nielsen Online.

This is the most unique visitors recorded since the NAA and Nielsen began tracking newspaper Web site audiences in 2004; the previous record was 73.3 million in the first quarter of 2009.

Although year-over-year comparisons are difficult because of a big increase in Nielsen's panel size in June, the active-reach figure appears to be remaining stable, as newspaper Web sites have hovered around 40% for the last two years. 

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