SBS News has recorded a 29 per cent surge in its audience according to the latest Ipsos Iris data.
It comes as SBS had the exclusive broadcasting rights to the FIFA World Cup.
The broadcaster’s broader digital network also enjoyed a bumper month, with SBS’s audience climbing 28.7 per cent as football fans flocked online to soak up the World Cup.
While SBS enjoyed the month’s biggest gain, ABC News retained its position as Australia’s largest online news brand with an audience of 11.79 million Australians.
However, it did lose nearly 850,000 monthly users compared to May, representing a 6.7 per cent decline.
News.com.au remained in second place with 11.09 million users, down 1.6 per cent month-on-month.
News Corp Australia’s managing director and publisher Free News and Lifestyle Pippa Leary said: “We’ve refocused our editorial strategy to prioritise building long-term audience engagement over short-term reach, and June’s results show that approach is working.”
“Across our news brands, audiences generated 500 million page views, spent an average of 51 minutes per person and drove 59 million video views for the month, representing 58 per cent of all video views in the category. That depth of engagement is also being reflected at brand level, with news.com.au delivering more than two and a half times the page views of the ABC and the highest time spent per person among the top 10 news sites.”
Seven was another of June’s winners, with 7news.com.au increasing its audience by 5.5 per cent to 7.39 million, while international publishers also posted strong growth. Daily Mail Australia climbed 12.3 per cent to 4.83 million readers and BBC.com rose 8.4 per cent to just under five million.
Elsewhere, Nine.com.au slipped 2.7 per cent to 8.95 million users, The Sydney Morning Herald fell 3.3 per cent to 6.5 million and Yahoo (Australia) News dropped 4.8 per cent after recording the biggest gain in May’s rankings.
Overall, 21.6 million Australians used a news website or app during June, reaching 95.7 per cent of online Australians aged 14 and over. Australians spent an average of 3.12 hours consuming online news across the month.
While the FIFA World Cup dominated online news consumption throughout June, other major stories driving readership included the Coogee shark attack, the alleged suitcase murder case involving an Australian tourist in Thailand, the Federal Budget, the Iran war and US politics.
