• Average increase of 57% for top ten news sites audiences¹
• ABC News Websites report 15 million people¹
• Seven of the top ten publishers report over 11 million people each¹

SYDNEY, 14 APRIL 2020: Increasing numbers of Australians turn to online news publishers to keep them informed and updated. Nielsen Digital Content Ratings reported an average increase of  57% across the top ten news sites audiences during March 2020, when compared to February 2020. 

Seven of the top ten news sites reported audiences over 11 million people and all of the top ten recorded their highest unique audience figure since the launch of Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings.² 

Nielsen Digital Content Ratings also reported increases in time spent with the overall current events and global news subcategory – reaching 51 million hours in total for the month of March 2020 – up over 20 million hours since December 2019 – see chart below.

Looking closer at the top ten, Nielsen revealed ABC News Websites reported 15 million unique audiences accessing their content in March 2020 – up from 9.9 million in February 2020, and retained the top rank position for the third consecutive month. 

News.com.au ranked second with a unique audience of 12.3 million, followed by 7NEWS with 11.8 million.  

The Guardian doubled its unique audience in March 2020 (+104%) compared with the prior month and moved their position from seventh to four place.

The Australian also doubled their unique audience (+101%) to rank tenth with a 4.9 million unique audience – and making their debut in the top 10 since September 2018.