News site audiences dive but News.com.au increases lead at the top of online ratings in January
News Corp’s News.com.au increased its lead at the top of the latest Nielsen online news figures for January, with its unique audience 450,000 greater than competitor SMH.com.au. 
Its unique audience of 3.577 million unique users kept it well ahead of the Smh.com.au which attracted an audience of 3.125 million, while ABC news websites with 2.676 million unique browsers was in third spot. However, all of the top three were down from the previous month’s results, with the school holidays and lack of major news events blamed for the subdued figures.
The Daily Mail Australia also leapfrogged stable mate 9News Websites lifting its audience to 2.462m from 2.33m in December, while the Nine offering which includes NineMSN fell back by 600,000 users to 2.195 million for the month, after being buoyed by its coverage of the Sydney siege.
Yahoo!7’s group of websites remained in the sixth spot but with a slightly lower audience of 2.049 million, down from 2.136 million in December.
The Guardian was one of just three sites in the top ten to post an increase, with 1.812m, while the other was The Daily Telegraph which was ninth with 1.717m.
The Herald Sun dropped back from seventh spot in December after scoring 1.890 million down to 10th in January with 1.75 million, back behind Fairfax’s The Age which had 1.753m.
BuzzFeed would have been outside the top ten with a unique audience of 1.548 million, although the IAB has consistently refused to classify it as a news site.
The Huffington Post, which on Monday announced a partnership with Fairfax to launch a local site, attracted 1.252 million in audience, behind SBS on 1.441 million, but well ahead of The Australian which managed just 983,000.
Smaller players The Conversation and The New Daily attracted a unique audience of 371,000 and 237,000 each.
Nielsen’s head of media Monique Perry blamed the overall drop off in audience on an unusual December.
“January is usually a time when people take stock of their lives, action New Year’s resolutions and plan for the year – and this is reflected in our browsing habits. While we’d expect to see uplifts in audience to such sites, 2015 saw a particular boost for career, real estate and automotive sites who really were the big winners in January,” she said.
“The news site rankings were relatively stable, showing a ‘return to normal’. While there were shifts, with the UK-originated sites Daily Mail Australia and Guardian Australia having a slightly higher audience for the month compared to December, the top three of News.com.au, SMH.com.au and ABC websites remain unchanged.”
Robert Burton-Bradley
