Whether they are browsing international headlines, local news, politics or the latest tech gadgets, 8.9 million Australians visited news websites in January 2014 – a recovery from seasonal lows typically experienced by news sites in December.
More than half of all Australians (57%) were active on the Web, and each visitor to news sites spent an average of 2 hours and 54 minutes on those sites in total during the month.
So which sites do Australians browse most when they’re looking for the latest news headlines? News.com.au website topped the list of news brands with 2.77 million unique visitors in January 2014 and also tops in terms of engagement, as visitors spent close to two minutes (1:47) on average, browsing content during the month.
Closely following News.com.au was smh.com.au with 2.76 million unique visitors and ninemsn with 2.45 unique visitors.
| Name | Unique Audience (000) | Page Views Per Person | Sessions Per Person | Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| news.com.au | 2,767 | 64 | 13.02 | 01:47:14 |
| smh.com.au | 2,751 | 41 | 11.87 | 01:27:57 |
| ninemsn News Websites | 2,454 | 30 | 12.33 | 00:49:21 |
| Yahoo!7 News Websites | 2,391 | 20 | 7.29 | 00:27:53 |
| ABC News Websites | 1,728 | 37 | 11.15 | 00:47:55 |
| Herald Sun | 1,580 | 22 | 7.05 | 00:32:35 |
| The Age | 1,432 | 59 | 14.17 | 01:47:59 |
| MailOnline | 1,401 | 17 | 5.23 | 00:49:32 |
| couriermail.com.au | 1,325 | 14 | 5.67 | 00:23:56 |
| BBC | 1,224 | 27 | 6.30 | 00:46:38 |
Source: Nielsen Online Ratings, Hybrid data January 2014.