News websites and apps reached 96.3% of online Australians aged 14 and over, or more than 20.6 million people, in February, according to Ipsos iris.
The data also revealed that politics, tax cuts, wars, and storms drove the biggest consumption.
Key political news events that received audience attention were Barnaby Joyce’s fitness to remain in politics after his ‘fall’ from grace, the stage three tax cuts redesign, the prospect of interest rate cuts, and former prime minister Scott Morrison’s final day in politics.
Other news stories, such as the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the Victorian storms, the murders of Luke Davies and Jessie Baird and missing mother Samantha Murphy, the Grammy Awards, and the NFL Superbowl, also received strong interest.
The chart below shows the News brands’ ranking during February 2024 by online audience size.
News.com.au led the charge as Australia’s top digital news brand in February, with an audience of more than 12.4 million.
Editor Kerry Warren said February was all about Taylor Swift and the frenzy surrounding her Australian tour dates which drove the site’s second-biggest entertainment number since Ipsos iris launched in January last year.
“We went all-in on Taylor Swift mania, running coverage of every concert, launching a dedicated vertical video carousel and even changing our logo to a news.com.au friendship bracelet.
“The Tay Tay effect also saw news.com.au enjoy millions of video views, particularly on mobile with our vertical video platform.
“But it wasn’t just a big month for entertainment – we led in all categories, with a healthy gap between us and our nearest competitor of more than 1.3 million,” she added.
Warren said there was significant breaking news that dominated News.com.au headlines in February, with the alleged murders of former Channel 10 reporter Jesse Baird and flight attendant Luke Davies and the disappearance of Ballarat mum Samantha Murphy.
It was also a huge month for royal news, with the palace announcing King Charles’ hospital admission and the Princess of Wales’ planned abdominal surgery on the same day.
Following News.com.au in the news category were ABC News, nine.com.au, Daily Mail Australia, and 7news.com.au rounding out the top five.
Ipsos iris, Australia’s digital audience measurement currency endorsed by IAB Australia, also showed the most consumed website and app categories in February. Leading the way was search engines (21.3 million), followed by social networking (21.3 million), technology (21.3 million), retail and commerce (21 million) and entertainment (20.9 million).
The rankings revealed more than 13.8 million people aged 14+ used a career website or app in February. While this was on par with January, the time spent on careers sites and apps increased significantly compared to January, up +14.9% per person.
People aged 25-39 are driving the increase, spending 1.3 hours per month on career websites and apps. LinkedIn lead the category, followed by Seek, Indeed and Jora, with Glassdoor rounding out the Ipsos iris rankings.
The chart below shows the Career brands’ ranking during February 2024 by online audience size.
Energy supplier/utilities was the fastest growing category in February, rising by 5.2% compared to January, as Australians sought out deals on providers. The events and attractions category rose by 2.4% with the music events sub-category jumping 68% compared to the previous month as Taylor Swift interest spiked again.
In addition, as children returned to schools and young people to universities, the average time spent online in the Education category increased by 15.5%.Overall, 21.499 million Australians aged 14+ used the internet in February and spent an average of 4.4 hours a day online, or 112 hours for the month.