Melbourne-based media sees biggest boost in online traffic in sport-driven November
November saw a number of sites experience a surge in traffic as The Melbourne Cup and the first ever day/night cricket test drove audiences online for sporting updates.
Melbourne publications The Age and Herald Sun benefited from the Melbourne Cup, and the first female jockey’s victory in the race’s history, with Fairfax’s The Age reporting its traffic went up by 10.09 per cent compared to October while News Corp’s Herald Sun’s audience grew 13.63 per cent.
The Age had a unique audience for November of 1.922m, pushing it into sixth position from its October ranking of eighth. Herald Sun jumped one spot up the rankings to eighth place with a November unique audience of 1.797m.
The top three websites held onto their positions, with ABC News Websites reporting an 11.59 per cent increase in traffic for November, posting a unique audience of 3.035m, according to the Nielsen Online rankings.
News Corp’s News.com.au continues to claim the top spot, with a unique audience of 3.677m while Fairfax Media’s Smh.com.au held onto the second spot despite a decline of 3.71 per cent. Smh.com.au reported a unique audience of 3.136m for November, down from October’s 3.257m. The BBC was the biggest winner for the period, with its audience up by 17.37 per cent, pushing it into ninth place with a unique audience of 1.686m. Yahoo7 news websites plunged to tenth place down from its sixth position after a month on month decline of 12.65 per cent with a November unique audience of 1.664m. The Guardian saw its audience grow by 0.32 per cent from 1.852m in October to 1.858m in November, however Guardian Australia managing director Ian McClelland blamed the small growth on a error with the company’s internal tagging system. “We recently identified a potential error with our internal tagging system, which has led to an increasing discrepancy between our in-house measurement results and Nielsen’s traffic data. Our in-house measurement tools reflect three months of record traffic from September to November,” he said in a statement. “Since the tagging has been re-implemented, Nielsen’s Market Intelligence data has shown a significant up-lift and we are looking forward to seeing this reflected in the December Online Ratings data released in January. Nielsen takes a thorough and stringent approach to measurement and we thank them for their ongoing assistance to resolve this matter.”
Buzzfeed, which is still not considered part of the current events & global news sub-category, had a unique audience of 1.230m down from 1.278m in October, meaning it would not have made the top 10 if Nielsen did include it in the mix.
Outside the top 10 other sites saw growth with The Huffington Post’s unique audience gaining month-on-month, up to to 1.540m from 1.336m in October, edging it closer to the top ten.
News Corp’s The Australian posted a unique audience for October of 1.135m down from October’s audience of 1.173m.
The test series with New Zealand which included the first ever day/night test helped Cricket Australia’s site boost its traffic, with an extra 352,000 people visiting during November for a total unique audience of 914,000.
Monique Perry, head of media at Nielsen, said in a statement: “The Melbourne Cup well and truly stopped the nation this year, and this meant sporting sites saw major upswings in audience. We know that Australians love sport, and November results show that the summer of sport has started with a bang.”
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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