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Music and weather sites grow as more Australians tune in and check radars

4 minute read | October 2016

– Bureau of Meteorology records double digit growth across all devices
– 6 out of 10 music entities report unique audience growth in September
– Shazam and Pandora record biggest growth out of top five music entities
– Woolworths records highest unique audience growth of top 20 digital brands

Sydney, Australia – 27 October 2016:  Music and weather sites are attracting additional Australians to their content with unique audiences on the rise, according to latest data from Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly).

Latest Nielsen results released today for the September 2016 month reveal six out of the top 10 digital music entities reported an increase in audiences with Apple Music topping the sub-category, attracting a unique audience of 7.7 million in September, up from 7.6 million the previous month.

Shazam and Pandora reported the biggest growth in top 5 for the Music sub-category over the month with Shazam’s unique audience rising from 1.6 million to 1.8 million, compared with the prior month – growth driven entirely by smartphone (+13%) and tablet (+14%) digital devices. Pandora increased its unique audience from 958K to 1.1 million – growth driven primarily by smartphone (+32%).

TABLE 1: TOP 5 MUSIC ENTITIES RANKED BY TOTAL UNIQUE AUDIENCES

Name

Unique Audience (000)

MoM (%) Increase

Apple Music

7,705

2%

Spotify

3,471

6%

Shazam

1,837

12%

SoundCloud

1,582

-13%

Pandora.com

1,141

19%

Source: Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) – September 2016

SPRING BRINGS GROWTH TO WEATHER SITES
The change of season in Australia brought an increased curiosity to the latest weather cycles and weather events. Weatherzone grew its unique audience by 8% – driven by desktops (+32%). And, an additional 1.1 million Australians accessed the Bureau of Meteorology site with double digit growth across all devices during September when compared with the prior month – see table 2 below.

TABLE 2: BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY

Unique Audience MoM (%) Increase

Total Audience

Desktop

Smart phone

Tablet

Bureau of Meteorology

27%

29%

20%

57%

Source: Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) – September 2016

WOOLWORTHS ON THE RISE
Nielsen’s digital ratings release for September 2016 revealed that Woolworths had the highest growth of all the top 20 digital brands ranked by unique audience (6.3 million) – up 9% compared to the prior month. While growth was felt across all their digital assets, desktop (+16%) and tablets (+11%) were key drivers – see table 3 below.

TABLE 3: WOOLWORTHS

Unique Audience MoM (%) Increase

Total Audience

Desktop

Smart phone

Tablet

Woolworths

9%

16%

8%

11%

Source: Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) – September 2016

SHIFTS IN NEWS RANKINGS
Off the back of consecutive months of record breaking highs for many of the nation’s top news websites – as a result of big news stories such as the Australian Election, Census and the Olympic Games – September reported shifts for all news sites in the top 10.  

News.com.au retained the top position in Nielsen’s digital rankings with a unique audience of 5.5 million and Nine.com.au moved to second place with a unique audience of 4.3 million. Smh.com.au moved to third place with a unique audience of 4.1 million, closely followed by ABC News.

Daily Mail Australia and Yahoo7 news remained consistent in the rankings, 5th and 6th positions respectively. The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Age all reported a lift in rankings to 7th, 8th and 9th place respectively, despite declines in their unique audiences, while the Herald Sun dropped to 10th position – see chart 4 below.

TOP 10 BY UNIQUE AUDIENCE, CURRENT EVENTS & GLOBAL NEWS SUB-CATEGORY, SEPTEMBER 2016

Name

Unique Audience (000)

Page Views Per Person

Sessions Per Person

Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)

news.com.au

5,540

48

 12

01:37:16

nine.com.au

4,255

40

 13

01:17:49

smh.com.au

4,063

26

 10

01:02:43

ABC News Websites

4,048

23

 9

00:34:44

Daily Mail Australia

2,926

27

 11

00:41:27

Yahoo7 News Websites

2,484

14

 8

00:15:06

The Guardian

2,272

15

 12

00:43:18

The Daily Telegraph

2,197

13

 6

00:17:12

The Age

2,152

32

 12

01:01:23

Herald Sun

2,151

18

 8

00:28:26

 

Source: Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) – September 2016

ABOUT NIELSEN

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers Watch and Buy.

Nielsen’s Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services across all devices where content — video, audio and text — is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry’s only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen provides its clients with both world-class measurement as well as analytics that help improve performance.  

Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries that cover more than 90 percent of the world’s population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com

For further information please contact:

Jackie Helliker
Nielsen
T: + 61 403 074 864 
E: jackie.helliker@nielsen.com