News site daily audiences surged during Olympics with numbers remaining high post-games
The Olympics boosted average daily audiences on Australia’s top news websites by 27%.
According to Nielsen Daily Digital Content Ratings (DCR) numbers, several digital news outlets experienced triple-digit growth, with The Guardian Sport seeing its daily audience surge by 139% during the games.
Nielsen Pacific managing director Monique Perry said if that’s not proof that news consumption remains robust, especially during major events, I don’t know what is.
“These daily numbers show that the credibility and reach of news outlets make them an attractive proposition for advertisers seeking to build brand awareness and trust at scale.”
Jonathan Betts, Nielsen Pacific executive director of commercial growth and product strategy, added: “As news consumption increasingly shifts online, advertisers must navigate a complex digital ecosystem, made more difficult by Meta’s recent withdrawal of funding for news content on its platforms.
“These numbers show that despite this, news presents huge opportunities for both publishers and advertisers if they have a deep understanding of audience behaviour, especially at a daily level.”
Post-games, the homecoming of Australia’s Olympic team and the ‘Raygun‘ controversy saw the boost to online news audiences extend past the closing ceremony.
While daily audiences to news sites did drop in the week following the games, overall, numbers were still up by an average of 6% on pre-games levels.
The headline numbers were an average of daily unique audience to the 25 leading news websites in Australia in the two weeks leading up to the games, the duration of the games, and the week following the games.
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