The opening rounds of the AFL and NRL footy season saw time spent per person consuming online sports content double in March to 74 minutes on average a month, up from 35 minutes in February, according to Ipsos iris, Australia’s new digital audience measurement currency endorsed by the IAB Australia.
In the sports category, more than 12.4 million people used a sports website or app last month and the total audience grew by 4.3% over February.
The chart below shows the Sports brands’ ranking during March 2023 by online audience size.
Major news events such as the NSW election, opening rounds of the NRL and AFL footy season and Oscars buzz saw more than 20 million (20.3 million) people use a news website or app during the month of March.
Australians spent more than 5.5 hours during March consuming online news content.
The News category includes audience and time spent online on both general news and broader news content including weather, sport, lifestyle, entertainment, and business news.
Men spent 25% more time consuming news content than women in March, while people aged 65+ spent the most time consuming news content at 9.5 hours for the month, closely followed by 55-64 year olds who spent almost nine hours consuming news.
The chart below shows the News brands’ ranking during March 2023 by online audience size.
Ipsos iris, which officially launched in March, provides accurate data about the 21 million Australians aged 14+ who access a wide variety of digital content and services across smartphone, PC/laptop and tablet devices.
Overall, Australians aged 14+ spent 3.5 hours per day, or more than 107 hours, online on a PC/laptop, smartphone, or tablet device in March, and this is on par with time spent per day the month prior.
The most consumed online categories by total audience size in March included social networking (21 million), technology (20.8 million), search (20.8 million), retail & commerce (almost 20.7 million), entertainment (20.6 million), finance (20.4 million) and news (20.3 million).
The Ipsos iris data also found that people aged between 25-39 were the largest cohort online, while people aged between 55-64 spent the most time online in March.
