News.com.au tumbles to sixth in ranking of Australia’s most popular websites, as ABC maintains lead
The rankings of Australia’s most popular news websites has had a further shake-up as COVID-19 changes reading habits.
News.com.au, which frequently sat atop the pile in 2019, had a unique monthly audience of 10.1m, a fall of 17.7% from the month prior, while the ABC maintained the number one position, despite a 9.3% fall to 13.767m.
News.com.au has been overtaken by the Daily Mail
Most news publishers experienced a month-on-month fall for April, as March had such significant climbs. In March, the ABC climbed 53%, News.com.au 31%, 7News 38%, The Guardian 104% and Daily Mail 46%.
For April, all of the top 10 news publishers experienced a decline, however, the Daily Mail was only down 2.1% to a unique monthly audience of 11.344m, pushing it up to second place.
Nine.com.au, which was in sixth place for March after a 46% climb, was in third for April, with a 7.7% decline to 10.671m.
7News was down from third to fourth with 10.646m. Despite sitting in the top five, readers of 7News spent a significantly shorter period of time on the site. While ABC News Websites commanded an average time of 49:40, 7News’ average was just 07:45. ABC users average 12.2 sessions, while 7News is 5.9.
The Guardian slipped from fourth to fifth with a unique audience of 10.254m for April.
News.com.au, which sat on top of the rankings as recently as December, but was in second place last month, slipped to sixth. Its average tome on site was second only to ABC, with 41:41.
Nielsen’s top ten news and current events websites in April 2020 [Click to enlarge]
The Australian Community Media Network of regional publications was down 11.6% to a unique audience of 4.894m.
Rounding out the top 10 was Yahoo, down 2.2% to 3.972m.
This means News Corp’s The Australian is no longer in the top 10. In March, its unique audience was up 101% to 4.925m, however this month it is back below the 4m mark.
news.com.au relies on the bored employee. When working from home, you’re either working harder, or enjoying the down time in a more enjoyable way. There is no room for news.com.au for a lot of people in this new world.
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Does this mean that News.com.au has stopped spending cash on SEO campaigns?
Or has all the news around Andrew Bolt and Mirada Devine providing drivel columns made everyone realise News now has the integrity of a potato when it comes to informing Australians on current events?
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A hollow victory for Daily Mail considering they rip the work of everyone below them.
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Two brit news sites in the top five. What has happened to our media landscape in Australia where we now have to rely on the poms for our news consumption. Nine and News have a lot to answer for!!
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Meanwhile, local media is mia (or shut) in being interested in a local community support initiative. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve contacted.
Half of this list have been marked as I’m ‘not interested’ in my Google Discover feed for a while.
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Great news!
Long may the tumble continue
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Entirely unsurprising. There’s a clickbait tipping point. Go over it, and people will actively start rebelling against the continual “34 things that will make your story go viral, number 17 will shock you!” headlines.
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