News site audiences dive but News.com.au increases lead at the top of online ratings in January

News Corp’s News.com.au increased its lead at the top of the latest Nielsen online news figures for January, with its unique audience 450,000 greater than competitor SMH.com.au. 

Its unique audience of 3.577 million unique users kept it well ahead of the Smh.com.au which attracted an audience of 3.125 million, while ABC news websites with 2.676 million unique browsers was in third spot. However, all of the top three were down from the previous month’s results, with the school holidays and lack of major news events blamed for the subdued figures.

The Daily Mail Australia also leapfrogged stable mate 9News Websites lifting its audience to 2.462m from 2.33m in December, while the Nine offering which includes NineMSN fell back by 600,000 users to 2.195 million for the month, after being buoyed by its coverage of the Sydney siege.

Yahoo!7’s group of websites remained in the sixth spot but with a slightly lower audience of 2.049 million, down from 2.136 million in December.