Seven of top ten news sites see audiences fall with Yahoo7 audience jumping 11 per cent
Seven of the top ten news websites saw their audiences fall again in October according to the Nielsen Online rankings including top three News.com.au, Smh.com.au and ABC’s news sites.
The biggest winner in the latest survey was Yahoo7 which climbed two spots thanks to an 11.54 per cent surge in unique audience, leapfrogging The Guardian which saw a 2 per cent decline.
The results follow a quiet period during the September school holidays where many sites again posted declines. While News.com.au held the top spot it again posted a decline of 1.99 per cent with a unique October audience of 3.541m.
It was a similar story over at Fairfax Media’s Smh.com.au which saw its unique audience slide by 3.72 per cent to sit at 3.257m.
ABC News website was the biggest faller in the top 10 dropping 8.8 per cent between September and October with a unique audience for October of 2.683m, down from 2.942m in the month prior. On October 29 the news website was down for several hours.
Many publishers blame the lack of tracking on mobile visitors in the rankings for subduing their numbers. Nielsen is expected to wrap its new mobile panel survey data into its online ratings next year.
The Daily Mail Australia was the highest rated publisher to record an increase in unique audience, up by 2.34 per cent in fourth, while Ninemsn news websites also reported a surge of 4.72 per cent in fifth.
Yahoo7 news websites jumped from a September unique audience of 1.905m, up from 1.738 in October, while The Guardian slid into seventh spot with a unique October audience of 1.852m.
Fairfax Media’s The Age slid from sixth spot in September down to the eighth ranking for October, with a unique audience of 1.728m, while the Herald Sun and the BBC rounded out the top ten despite declines of 1.20 per cent and 10.99 per cent respectively.
Buzzfeed, which is still not considered part of the current events & global news sub-category, had a unique audience of 1.278, down from 1.385m in September, 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 1.336m from 1.302m in September.
News Corp’s The Australian posted a unique audience for October of 1.173m, up on September’s audience of 1.136m.
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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September was a huge month for news sites with the federal leadership spill. I’m not surprised to see that numbers across the board were down in October, would view this more as a correction than a trend.
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I blame Abbott.
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The data quoted is ‘tethered’ PCs so mobile will definitely be a component.
But don’t forget that to be part of the ‘monthly unique audience’ you only need to visit a site for a minute in that month. So big news stories will drive up the monthly uniques quickly but can disappear just as quickly.
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Honestly do not get the fuss. Its up one month and down the next. So what…. only shareholders care.
At the end of the day advertisers want to target the right people, fewer if possible if it is more in target, but knowing who it the biggest this month not so much.
There is some great insight with online ratings and I am sure one could find ways to publish those insights on top sites to find male 18-24 year olds, etc.
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