F.Y.I.

BBC celebrates highest-ever Australian traffic

BBC News has recorded its highest-ever Australian traffic, with 9m unique visitors in March.

The announcement:

New independent data from Similarweb* has revealed that BBC News sites are the world’s most visited amongst traditional news publishers. March 2020 saw record figures for many news outlets but the figures reveal that the BBC’s online portals attracted the highest number of daily visits during the peak of the recent coronavirus pandemic in March and April 2020, outperforming its closest international news competitor, CNN.com, by 36%.

Data from ATI** also confirms that March 2020 was the highest-traffic month of all time for BBC.com with:

  • 1.5 billion monthly page views
  • 179 million monthly unique browsers
  • 61 million monthly video views
  • April 2020 was the second highest month on record for BBC.com, with 158m unique browsers, up 31% on the 12 month average.

BBC.com in Australia saw a record-breaking nine million unique visitors in the month of March 2020*** up 62% year-on-year. IPSOS’ most recent figures**** show that the BBC is the #1 online international news brand amongst the affluent in Australia. The data also shows that BBC World News is the #1 international news channel, having moved up from second place in 2018.
Whilst growth was driven predominantly by news, other sections of BBC.com have also seen a strong uplift. The site’s features offering – BBC Future, BBC Travel, BBC Culture, BBC Worklife and BBC Reel – saw record figures across Australia of 1.1million unique browsers and 2.6 million page views in April 2020, with a YoY increase of 89% and 81% respectively.*****

Although the majority of visitors consumed some coronavirus content, it accounted for only a third of the total number of page views, as the audience moved on to broader content.
BBC World News has also seen record-breaking figures as global demand for the channel increased. In recent weeks, it has been made available in over 50m more homes around the world, bringing the total number of households to over half a billion for the first time.

Jim Egan, CEO of BBC Global News, said, “Coronavirus transcends borders and political party lines; this pandemic is a truly global story and it affects every one of us. In my lifetime, it has never been more important for people across the world to have access to accurate, impartial news from a source they can trust. Misinformation can be very dangerous and it thrives in times of uncertainty, so I’m pleased that audiences are turning to BBC News in the knowledge that they can rely on us for the facts.”

Jamie Chambers, Regional Director, BBC Global News ANZ, said, “2020 has seen a series of record breaking months for traffic on BBC.com in Australia as major global news events break and Australians come to BBC.com for coverage they can rely on. There is a clear role in Australia for a news publisher who provides impartial, accurate and trusted coverage of news events of global significance , and BBC Global News is proud to be able to meet this need. Research continually highlights the effectiveness of quality news environments for advertisers, even during hard news events, so we hope this latest data gives brands confidence that shows BBC.com delivers not only the environment but also the reach needed for effective advertising campaigns.”

* Source: Similarweb
** Source: AT Internet, March 2020 (Global)
*** Source:  AT Internet, March 2020 v March 2019 (Australia)
**** Source: Ipsos Affluent Survey APAC 2018 Q1 – 2019 Q2, Australia
***** Source: AT Internet, April 2020 v April 2019 (Australia)

Source: BBC media release

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