Music and Weather Sites Grow as More Australians Tune In and Check Radars

– 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, 5^th and 6^th positions respectively. The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Age all reported a lift in rankings to 7^th, 8^th and 9^th place respectively, despite declines in their unique audiences, while the Herald Sun dropped to 10^th 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