U.S. newspaper companies drew record traffic to their Web sites in the first quarter - on average 74.4 million monthly unique visitors, which represents more than one-third of all online users, according to the latest figures provided by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America, Editor and Publisher reported.

The numbers were up from 72 million unique visitors per month during the previous quarter. The data also showed online newspaper visitors contributed more than 3.2 billion page views, or more than 2.3 billion minutes browsing, in the first quarter of 2010, according to the AFP article posted on Google News.

"As the economic outlook begins to improve, our industry will continue to shape its own future with digital products and services that grow audience and offer maximum value to advertisers," according to NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm.

"Newspaper publishers continue to experiment with aggressive new business models, leveraging trustworthy and robust content to attract large audiences to their digital properties month after month," Sturm added in a statement.