Readers are voting with their mice to the paywall instituted in March at the Hebrew edition of "Haaretz". The Internet Use Measuring Committee found a 15% drop in real users per month at the newspaper, and a 17% drop in daily use. Although the figures do not indicate mass defection from the newspaper's online edition, this is because it is possible to read the headlines and some articles can still be accessed for free.
"Haaretz" business affiliate "TheMarker" had the second largest decline among the top 20 websites, with a 7% drop in monthly real users, a 14.7% drop in average daily users, and a 14% drop in pages viewed.
"Globes" narrowed the gap with "TheMarker" to 2,400 monthly real users (595,000 to 597,000). There is a gap of 23,000 average daily users.
The Internet Use Measuring Committee added Hebrew daily "Yediot Ahronot's" website "ynet" to its report video viewing. "ynet" reached second place, behind portal "Walla!", with a gap of 42% in number of viewers and 247% in average time viewing per month per user. The two portals mostly compete in video of news items and studio broadcasts, where "ynet" has the upper hand, with more viewers of new clips - 10% for long clips, and 20% for short clips. But "Walla!" has the lead in live news broadcasts, with 260% more viewers than "ynet".
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 17, 2013
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