• Nielsen online news November: News.com.au again leads smh.com.au, ABC & BBC grow
November saw the first major sporting events of the summer season take place and with it came large audiences flocking to sport websites, reports Nielsen.
The Melbourne Cup, and the first female jockey’s victory in the race’s history, was a watershed moment for Australian sport, and Australians went online to read about the results of the day. Victorian sites The Age and Herald Sun were visited by an additional 194,000 and 275,000 respectively in November.
The gambling/sweepstakes category also experienced an uplift of 678,000 additional people visiting to place and check bets in November.
The advent of the cricket season, and particularly the first ever Day and Night Test, resulted in a major lift for Cricket Australia’s site with an additional 325,000 people visiting, for a total unique audience of 854,000. ESPNcricinfo gained an additional 251,000 unique audience to its site this month, while MSN Sport grew by 120,000 people compared to October 2015, and a sizeable 306,000 lift in audience from November 2014.
Commenting on the results, Monique Perry, head of media at Nielsen, said: “The Melbourne Cup well and truly stopped the nation this year, and this meant sporting sites saw major upswings in audience. We know that Australians love sport, and November results show that the summer of sport has started with a bang.
“Nielsen’s 2015 Australia Connected Consumer Report found that 58% of consumers said sport is their favourite TV genre that they read articles, reviews and looked at photos about online – higher than any other genre – so these results are further evidence that the online medium is a key part of the modern sporting experience.”
When looking at the current events and global news sub-category, the ABC News websites experienced a gain of 352,000 in audience, while the BBC saw 293,000 additional people visiting.