It may take time to digest, but new data from Nielsen//NetRatings suggests that blogs help keep newspapers healthy, or at least their Web sites. Nielsen found that the number of viewers heading to U.S. newspaper blogs more than tripled in December from a year ago.

That’s partly because there are more newspaper-affiliated blogs to read now, but also reflects people making it a habit to read them. Blog readers also accounted for 13 percent of overall Web traffic to the top U.S. newspaper sites — like the NYTimes.com, USAToday.com and washingtonpost.com – compared with 4 percent in 2005.

We spoke with Carolyn Creekmore, Nielsen//NetRatings senior director of media analytics, who told us the study was not prompted by a request from the newspaper industry. “This is very much our analytical look at the world, it’s something we’ve known has been building in terms of the newspaper sites to create separate sections (for blogs) … We’re trying to help quantify to the industry what kind of growth that’s been.”

Reuters: Have you previously released data on newspaper blog readership?
Creekmore: This is the first time we’ve really drilled down into the traditional newspaper online segment (for blogs) … The challenge on that end is defining and quantifying what is the news blog arena. There are so many blogs out there.

Reuters: What’s behind the growth?
Creekmore: Part of that extensive growth is based on the fact that a year ago, to some degree, the newspapers were not up and running in this online arena … There’s certainly a degree of comfort level that has grown over past year or so (for reading blogs) … We’ve all gotten a little more comfortable in having a conversation online.

Reuters: Why are more men reading blogs than women, according to your data?
Creekmore: In terms of the news arena you tend to see male skews to begin with and as you see in the blog arena, there’s an even slightly larger skew towards men as well. … That’s going to depend largely on the content of the blog, the contributor or the blogger themselves and their attitudes may bring in a female skew … It’s a little more broad (the balance between men and women viewers) when you look at the blogging arena overall simply because the content is so widespread.

(Photos: Reuters / Spinach, Popeye)