Ipsos iris rankings from March 2023 have revealed Australians spend 5.5 hours consuming online news content.
The News category includes audience and time spent online on both general news and broader news content, including weather, sport, lifestyle, entertainment, and business news.
The chart below shows the News brands’ ranking during March 2023 by online audience size.
News.com.au is Australia’s number-one news site for the third consecutive month, according to the March 2023 rankings.
Lisa Muxworthy, News.com.au editor-in-chief said the site recorded its biggest audience on record in March.
“To reach a unique audience of over 13.2 million in the digital news category is an incredible result and testament to the hard work of the news.com.au team,” Muxworthy said.
“Our coverage of breaking news and the NSW state election contributed to news.com.au’s audience growth in March, as well as Meghan and Harry and the ongoing drama in the royal family, the Oscars, and James Weir’s reality TV recaps.
Following news.com.au in the rankings was 7news.com.au which rose by 6.9%, Daily Mail Australia was also up 5.8% and ABC News by 3.6%.
The Ipsos iris results found men spent 25% more time consuming news content than women in March, while people aged 65+ spent the most time consuming news content at 9.5 hours for the month, closely followed by 55-64 year olds who spent almost nine hours consuming news.
Major news events such as the NSW election, opening rounds of the NRL and AFL footy season and Oscars buzz saw more than 20 million (20.3 million) people use a news website or app during the month of March.
Ipsos iris, which officially launched in March, provides accurate data about the 21 million Australians aged 14+ who access a wide variety of digital content and services across smartphone, PC/laptop and tablet devices.
Overall, Australians aged 14+ spent 3.5 hours per day, or more than 107 hours, online on a PC/laptop, smartphone, or tablet device in March, and this is on par with time spent per day the month prior.
The most consumed online categories by total audience size in March included social networking (21 million), technology (20.8 million), search (20.8 million), retail & commerce (almost 20.7 million), entertainment (20.6 million), finance (20.4 million) and news (20.3 million).
The Ipsos iris, Australia’s new digital audience measurement currency endorsed by the IAB Australia, data also found that people aged between 25-39 were the largest cohort online, while people aged between 55-64 spent the most time online in March.