Ipsos iris, Australia’s new digital audience measurement currency endorsed by the IAB Australia, has released its data for April. Ipsos iris 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.
In the News category, 20.2 million people used a news website or app in the last month, with time spent engaging with online news content increasing by 1.2%, to almost six hours per month. This was fuelled by major news events such as the arrest of former US President Donald Trump, the death of comedian Barry Humphries AO CBE, the wedding of radio personality Kyle Sandilands, the lead up to the Coronation and the Federal Budget, and sports events such as the Autumn racing carnival and the AFL and NRL seasons.
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 April 2023 by online audience size.
News.com.au holds the top spot as Australia’s number-one news site for the fourth consecutive month.
News.com.au editor Oliver Murray said to reach 12.8 million Australians in April was an incredible result for the news.com.au team.
“It was a month where lots of Aussies switched off from the news over Easter and school holidays, but it’s testament to our team that we kept serving up news they needed to read,” Murray said.
News.com.au editor Oliver Murray
“We saw a 17 per cent month-on-month increase in our sports audience to become the number one sports brand, driven by our NRL and AFL coverage. Australians also turned to us for travel news, reaching an audience of 2.541 million and leading the travel news category.
“The news.com.au team is proud to be the number one news site for every month since Ipsos iris started tracking numbers.”
This month, Mediaweek spoke to news.com.au editor-in-chief Lisa Muxworthy about what goes into covering an event like the Coronation of King Charles III.
“A lot of the commentary around the Royal family is that Australians don’t care, but the engagement in the stories is huge, “ says Muxworthy. “Particularly around the Coronation, a lot of people want to know what’s going on, what it means, they want to see Harry, they want to see what Kate is wearing. Whether people believe in the Royal family or not, there’s still that real fascination around such a historic event.”
The Coronation follows the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II after her passing in September last year. When asked how news.com.au’s coverage of the Coronation compared to the Queen’s funeral, Muxworthy says that the team treated the two events in a very similar manner.
“The funeral was a bigger event, and it went for a longer period of time – from the moment the news broke of her dying to the actual funeral, there was a lot going on. We took a lot of learnings from our coverage of her death and the funeral. We know what people are interested in, so we really replicated a lot of what we did then.”
Read More: From Crowns to Cost of living: Lisa Muxworthy on news.com.au’s big news week