Aussies flock to the BBC during heavy news period
Australians are turning to the BBC for international news
Australia’s top news sites took another tumble in September, after two months of audience gains that saw both ABC and news.com.au climb out of a mid-year slump.
However, the BBC has managed to draw local audiences during a month of heavy international news that included a public assassination, Donald Trump’s visit to the UK, and the attempted peace brokering of two wars.
The ABC remains the country’s most-read news website, with a modest 1.5% fall seeing the national broadcaster drop from 13 million monthly readers in August to 12.8m. News.com.au readers fell by 4.8% in September, largely wiping out its 5.4% leap the previous month. With just over 12 million monthly readers, there is now a gulf of 741,000 monthly readers between the top two news sites.
The Guardian, 7news, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age all suffered moderate audience drops, while The Australian hasn’t managed to keep its freshly minted position in the Top 10, following last month’s improbable 45% ‘audience’ leap, from 3.575m in July to 5.186m in August – a fresh audience that largely consisted of third-party aggregators like Apple News and Google News sending curious clickers to a paywalled page.
