American online news users rate highly bbcnews.com

The BBC's international news site bbcnews.com is among top 10 online news sites which users in the US are aware of, with 61% trusting the BBC more than US news sources, an online survey has revealed.

According to the survey, over four in 10 US online news users regularly go to bbcnews.com and a further 37% would consider using it in the future.

The survey, conducted on behalf of the BBC by the international research agency TNS, was designed to assess the popularity of some key US news sites and to see how the BBC performed against top online sites in the US.

Alan Booth, Controller, Marketing, Communications and Audiences, BBC World Service, commented: We had known that the majority of impressions to BBC sites - 80% - go to news pages, and that half of all traffic to the bbcnews.com site comes from the US. This survey revealed that bbcnews.com is a popular and much admired site in the worlds most competitive online market. It is the first time that we have surveyed US online news users, and the results are very encouraging.

With 71% of those surveyed aware of bbcnews.com, the site rated ahead of CBS News (70%), USA Today (69%), Reuters (64%), Google News (53%) and AOL News (53%) in terms of awareness.

84% of those surveyed rated the BBC "as a company with a history of providing great news coverage”, 61% "trust the BBC's world news coverage over that of US owned media”, and 67% believe "the BBC provides better coverage than US news services”.

The survey was conducted online among US online news users and appeared on leading international news sites including IHT, Washington Post, Economist and a selection of AOL news sites.