During May 2014, 10 million Australians visited a news and information site
SMH increased unique audience by 6.5 percent
News and Information accounts for more than a quarter of time spent browsing web on smartphone
SYDNEY: June 16, 2014 – For the first time this year there are shifts in the top three online news rankings and smh.com.au has taken top place, according to results released today by Nielsen, a global leading provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy.
Latest results from Nielsen Online Ratings, which includes the consumption of site content via a mobile or tablet device through its hybrid methodology, revealed a 6.5 percent increase in unique audience by smh.com.au in May 2014 compared to prior month. Other notable growth by mastheads in the top ten include; ABC News Websites (+8.9%), The Guardian (+5.6%) and Couriermail.com.au (+14.3%).
During May 2014, 10.0 million Australians visited a news and information site, spending 2 hours, 36minutes per person on average. In terms of engagement with the top ten new sites, consumers spent the most time viewing content on News.com.au – 1hr 27mins per person, (see table 1).
Results from the Nielsen and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) mobile pilot, publicised last week, revealed that the news and information category accounts for 26 percent of total usage time browsing the web on a smartphone, and is the second most likely browsed category, (behind social).
“This is the first time our industry has seen online audience engagement by individual device type and had visibility of audiences on Apps,” stated Monique Perry, Head of Nielsen’s Media Industry Group. “These industry first insights reveal extremely high consumer usage of Apps – spending 18 hours per month on smartphone apps and 15 hours per month on tablet Apps.”
Nielsen’s online data for the food category attracted a unique audience of 6.2 million in May 2014 and showed Taste.com.au as the clear category leader with a unique audience of 2.2 million, attracting one in every three people visiting food websites.
Domino’s Pizza recorded the highest level of engagement out of the top ten, (19:59mins per person) followed by Taste.com.au (16:32mins per person), (see Table 2.) Sixty‐one percent of total online session traffic for the food category was from a portable device – specifically, smartphone (39%) and tablet (22%).
“Engagement with this category is higher than average (12%) for tablet devices, likely due to consumer need to access information while shopping for ingredients or cooking in the kitchen,”commented Perry.
TABLE 1. TOP SITES RANKED BY UNIQUE AUDIENCE FOR NEWS
| Name | Unique Audience (000) | Page Views Per Person | Sessions Per Person | Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss) |
| smh.com.au | 3,841 | 33 | 10.35 | 01:02:02 |
| news.com.au | 3,643 | 54 | 12.85 | 01:27:32 |
| ninemsn News Websites | 3,124 | 23 | 10.88 | 00:38:55 |
| ABC News Websites | 2,513 | 26 | 8.90 | 00:42:08 |
| Yahoo!7 News Websites | 2,321 | 18 | 7.31 | 00:27:55 |
| MailOnline | 2,259 | 16 | 6.26 | 00:42:06 |
| The Age | 1,910 | 39 | 12.10 | 01:21:08 |
| Herald Sun | 1,908 | 24 | 9.06 | 00:47:49 |
| The Guardian | 1,864 | 15 | 5.46 | 00:25:56 |
| couriermail.com.au | 1,727 | 11 | 5.64 | 00:20:01 |
Source: Nielsen Online Ratings, Hybrid data May, 2014.
*MailOnline is now called The Daily Mail Australia and this name change will be reflected in the June 2014 Nielsen Online Ratings data.
TABLE 2. TOP SITES RANKED BY UNIQUE AUDIENCE FOR FOOD
| Name | Unique Audience (000) | Page Views Per Person | Sessions Per Person | Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss) |
| taste.com.au | 2,264 | 16 | 3.65 | 00:16:32 |
| Allrecipes | 767 | 5 | 2.27 | 00:05:37 |
| Scripps Networks Food Websites | 707 | 5 | 2.54 | 00:08:07 |
| Domino’s Pizza | 619 | 31 | 1.94 | 00:19:59 |
| Best Recipes | 599 | 8 | 2.92 | 00:10:31 |
| Good Food | 509 | 8 | 4.42 | 00:10:13 |
| Dan Murphy’s | 504 | 14 | 2.40 | 00:10:57 |
| Food.com | 478 | 4 | 2.32 | 00:08:19 |
| About.com Food | 438 | 2 | 1.58 | 00:04:17 |
| Yummly | 409 | 5 | 1.48 | 00:03:47 |
Source: Nielsen Online Ratings, Hybrid data May, 2014.
NOTES
Nielsen Online Ratings Hybrid data has included consumption of site content via mobile and tablet devices since Hybrid launched in 2011. There is currently no data from the Nielsen and IAB mobile pilot included in the Nielsen Online Ratings measurement data.
ABOUT NIELSEN
Nielsen N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence and mobile measurement. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA, and Diemen, the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.
CONTACT
Jackie Helliker; 0403 074 864; jackie.helliker@nielsen.com
