Nielsen Digital Content Ratings monthly-tagged data for October 2018 revealed that more than half (52 per cent) of the total time spent online consuming news-related content during October 2018 was by Australians aged 50 plus.

Desktop was the device of choice for Australians accessing news stories online, contributing to close to half (49 per cent) of all time, followed by smartphones (35 per cent) and tablets (16 per cent).

October 29 was the peak day of the month for Australians spending time-consuming news content online, up 15 per cent compared to the average days that month.

This aligns with the Lion Air plane crash that took place in Jakarta the same day.

For yet another consecutive month, news.com.au was ranked number one in terms of highest unique audience (9.8 million) according to Nielsen Digital Content Ratings monthly-tagged data for October 2018.

This was followed by nine.com.au (8.5 million) and then ABC News Websites (7.9 million).

Fourth place was smh.com.au (7.4 million).

Next in the Nielsen news rankings was Daily Mail Australia (6.2 million), followed by Yahoo7 (4.3 million) in the sixth position.

In the seventh position was The Guardian (4.2 million), followed by Fairfax Digital Regional Network with a unique audience of 3.3 million.