Nielsen July News ratings: news.com.au recovers, back at #2

Australians continue to seek out information and returned to news websites for regular updates as a second wave of COVID-19 has emerged.

According to Nielsen Digital Content Ratings data released today, users collectively spent nearly 45 million hours engaging with news content online for the month, an increase of 51% when compared to July 2019.

According to Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings, the most substantial year-on-year percentage increase was seen via computers, with a 54% increase in total time spent, whilst mobile saw a 50% increase in total time spent when compared to July 2019.

Year-on-year engagement increases were seen across most age groups with people 65+ seeing the largest percentage increase, spending 82% more time engaging with news content online when compared to the same month last year. People aged 35-44 (up 68%) and 45-54 (up 60%) also saw substantial year-on-year increases in time spent engaging with current events & global news content.

Nielsen Digital Content Ratings reported that ABC News Websites retained the top position, with a unique audience of 13.3 million for the month of July 2020.

News.com.au ranked second with a unique audience of 11.6 million, followed by nine.com.au (11.1 million) and Daily Mail Australia (10.7 million). 7NEWS ranked fifth with a unique audience of 10.3 million.

The biggest mover on the chart was news.com.au which lifted from fourth place to second month-on-month. The rest of the top 10 was unchanged from the previous month.

All of the top 10 current events and global news sites saw a month-on-month increase in unique audience, with seven of those 10 sites seeing a double-digit percentage increase.