Nielsen digital news ratings for February 2018 revealed that news.com.au (5.7 million) remained the top news entity and increased 1% when compared with the prior year.
In comparison with February 2017, there were changes in the ranking order for the next nine news entity rankings.
In second place were ABC News Websites (4.8 million, +1%), which moved up from fourth place. In third place was nine.com.au (4.6 million, 0%), which fell from second place.
Smh.com.au (3.9 million, -9%) moved from third place to fourth place.
Next were Yahoo7 News Websites (3.1 million, +25% year on year), which moved from seventh to fifth place, followed by Daily Mail (2.8 million, -5%), which dropped from fifth place to sixth place. The Guardian (2.6 million, -4%), which had previously held sixth place in February 2017, moved back to seventh place.
Next was BBC (2.4 million, +8%), which jumped up from eleventh to eighth place.
In ninth place was MSN News (2.1 million, +19%), which jumped up into the top 10 from fourteenth place.
Last was The Age (2.0 million, -14%), which fell from eighth place.
Note that Fairfax Metropolitan sites, including Metropolitan mastheads, do not include any census data for their volumetrics including time per person and sessions per person. Unique audience uses the same methodology as previous months and is consistent with all sites in the rankings.
Time spent online
During February 2018, time spent by Australians 18+ on mobile devices grew when compared with year prior. Smartphones had more than double the amount of time spent per person 18+ (51 hours, 10 minutes, +12% versus a year ago) compared to desktop (24 hours, 33 minutes, -19% versus a year ago). Tablet devices also saw strong audience usage at 32 hours, 43 minutes, +10% versus a year ago.
In February 2018, 17.4 million Australians 18+ accessed online content, with smartphones as the device of choice at 15 million. This was followed by desktop audiences 18+ at 14.9 million and tablet audiences at 8.3 million. When compared with the year prior, desktop audiences have increased by 2% and smartphone and tablet audiences have individually increased by 9%.
Photo credit: Shutterstock