The March Ipsos Iris Ranking Report has been released highlighting audience growth across all major Australian publishers.
Readers flocked to publishers mainly due to escalating conflict in the Middle East and the global fuel crisis. The Daily Mail and SBS News saw the largest increases in audience gaining 23.2 per cent and 19.8 per cent respectively.
Upwards of 21.5 million Aussies used a news website or app during the month of March reaching 95.3 per cent of Australia’s online population above the age of 14. Average time spent consuming news rose to 3.58 hours per month, up from 3.12 hours in February.
The spike was driven by intense interest into international and domestic developments in the Iran war, and the consequential soaring of oil crisis, reports of petrol stations running dry and concerns over Australia’s fuel supply.
March saw consumer activity around independent fuel price checking and availability jump as the Middle East conflict escalated. Audience numbers for fuel comparison brand Petrol Spy Australia grew by 126 per cent month-on-month, reaching 5.2 million Australians in March, compared to just 2.3 million in February.
NSW Fuel Check’s audience also significantly increased last month, up 75.6 per cent from February. Users nearly doubled their time on the site, spending 22.4 minutes per person, compared to 12.6 minutes in February.
Fuel-related brands also grew audience numbers month-on-month. Ampol was up 54 per cent and United Petroleum was up 30 per cent.
The ranking report demonstrated a lift for all publishers in viewership, as Australian’s sought real time updates across a variety of sources.
News Corp Australia remained the country’s largest digital news publisher based on audience. Nine, ABC, The Guardian and Seven West Media also benefited from the category-wide increase.
News Corp Australia, managing director and publisher, free news and lifestyle, Pippa Leary, said: “March results show strong momentum across our network. We reached 80.4 per cent of online Australians, and 18.15 million people visited our sites, with engaged reach lifting to an average of 149 browser page views per person. Video also continues to grow, delivering more than 103 million views across the network. With deeper engagement and rapid video growth, we’re able to deliver stronger outcomes for clients.”
These results reinforce how geopolitical instability and cost-of-living pressures trigger increases in news consumption, especially when global conflicts have local repercussions.
