Australians return to news sites after lazy April
Australians have returned to the major news websites, after readership dropped by millions across the country’s top publications during an April plagued by elections, tariffs, and lazy, long weekends away from the screen.
In April, eight of the top ten news sites collectively lost close to three million readers, with nine.com.au alone dropping over a million Australians.
This month, escalating world conflicts, Labor’s landslide victory, a captivating mushroom murder trial, and the NSW mid-north coast floods drew readers back to the news, with just the Daily Mail and 7news.com.au losing audience during the month.
ABC News is by far the country’s top news website, with 13.9 million monthly readers – up 5.9% from April. It’s more than two million readers clear of its nearest rival, news.com.au, who lost 550,000 readers in April, and stayed almost flat at 11.8 million readers in May.
Nine.com.au managed to lure back 574,000 of the 1.2 million readers that fled in April, to jump back over the 10-million-reader mark for May, while The Guardian Australia gained over a million readers in a month, to leapfrog 7news and Daily Mail, who dropped 576,000 and 100,000 respectively.
The biggest audience gains this month, percentage-wise, came from the BBC and SBS News, perhaps indicative of their heavy focus on international news.
SBS News added 764,000 readers, to climb to 5.6 million, while the BBC drew an extra 758,000 readers, to creep back into the top ten and bump The Age out of the list.
The Sydney Morning Herald is the only paywalled site to make the Ipsos iris rankings this month, gaining 540,000 readers to sit at 7.76 million.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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