The extraordinary growth in digital news consumption in 2020 has been sustained during the beginning of 2021 with 80%3 of adult Australians turning to digital news sites and apps to stay informed and updated every month.
Digital Media Ratings volumetrics data, released by Nielsen, highlights some of these evolving digital consumer behaviours as the country registers spikes in COVID cases and restrictions come in place again to reduce the spread of the virus.
This report comes after a the recent report from Digital News Report: Australia 2021 released by the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra, found that trust in news has rebounded to 43 per cent, five points higher than last year.
This earlier report found that Radio trails television, social media and online sources as the main source of news.
According to Nielsen, total time spent in digital news consumption registered its peak on May 27, 2021 reaching 1.6 million hours1, while the second-highest was recorded on June 27, 2021, reaching 1.5 million hours2 as NSW went into lockdown.
When looking into what has driven the uplift it was primarily driven by news content consumed on mobile devices with the average daily time spent increasing in June by 12%4 in comparison to the same month last year. The average daily time spent consuming news content in June 2021 on desktop devices, whilst 6%5 lower than the same month last year, increased by 9%6 from May 2021.
Sources:
1.Digital Media Ratings, Daily Volumetrics, 27 May 2021, Digital C/M, Current Events & Global News Sub-category, Total Time in hours
2.Digital Media Ratings, Daily Volumetrics, 27 June 2021, Digital C/M, Current Events & Global News Sub-category, Total Time in hours
3.Digital Content Planning, Text, Jan – April 2021, Digital C/M, Current Events & Global News sub-category, Universe Reach %.
4.Digital Media Ratings, Daily Volumetrics, 1 – 27 June 2020 vs 1 – 27 June 2021, Mobile, Current Events & Global News Sub-category, Daily average of Total Time in minutes YOY comparison as a % increase.
5.Digital Media Ratings, Daily Volumetrics, 1 – 27 June 2020 vs 1 – 27 June 2021, Computer, Current Events & Global News Sub-category, Daily average of Total Time in minutes YOY comparison as a % increase.
6.Digital Media Ratings, Daily Volumetrics, 1 – 31 May 2021 vs 1 – 27 June 2021, Computer, Current Events & Global News Sub-category, Daily average of Total Time in minutes MOM comparison as a % increase.
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