Online newspapers visited by half of European Internet users

comScore's data reveals Internet users in the UK spend the most time online out of all their European counterparts and have the highest levels of engagement, too.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, to learn that the two most-visited newspapers online in Europe were U.K.-based. Britain's oldest tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mail, attracted the largest online audience in Europe with 20.1 million unique visitors, followed by The Guardian at 15.7 million unique visitors.

The two British newspapers were followed by Turkish newspapers Hürriyet and Milliyet and German newspaper Bild, each attracting around 10 million unique visitors.

Many visits to newspaper websites were driven by Facebook, found comScore. Google Sites preceded 12% of visits to the top five newspapers mentioned above but Facebook isn't far behind driving 10%.

In the U.S. print ad spending in newspapers and magazines is forecast to drop below that of advertising spend online for the first time. eMarketer predicts a 6.1% drop in magazine and newspaper print ad spending to a total of $33.8 billion in the coming year compared with growth of 23.3% in online ad spending to $39.5 billion.

Tags: comScore, consumer insight, Europe, Internet use, online newspapers, research