Nielsen March news sites: ABC audience up, BBC top 10

13.5 million Australians went online for their news in March

Latest data released by Nielsen revealed 13.5 million Australians went online for their news and current affairs information during March 2017 – up 2% when comparing both the same month the prior year, and the prior month.

Accessing content via a desktop remains the main method for access of this content – up 4%. However, growth in unique audiences when comparing March 2017 with February 2017 is also strong for smartphone (+3%) and tablet (+13%) devices.

Seven of the top 10 entities in the current event and global news sub-category increased unique audiences for March 2017 compared to the previous month, according to Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) data.

• News.com.au is still in the number one position with a unique audience of over 5.7 million, an increase of 1% compared to the previous month.

• ABC News saw a significant increase in unique audiences and jumped to second place with 4.9 million (+19%).

• Nine.com.au is in third place with no change in its unique audience of 4.6 million from February.

• SMH.com.au is in fourth place with a unique audience of 4.1 million (-4%).

• Daily Mail Australia (3.2 million, +9%) and The Guardian (2.8 million, +6%) retained their fifth and sixth positions in the audience rankings.

• BBC jumped back into the top 10 at seventh position with a unique audience of 2.5 million (+14%), followed by the Herald Sun in eighth place (2.5 million, +12%), The Daily Telegraph in ninth (2.5 million, +6%) and Yahoo 7 News moving to tenth place (2.4 million, -4%).

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