Fairfax Media’s best-performing website, smh.com.au, has maintained its number one position in the online news rankings ahead of closest rival News Corp’s digital-only property news.com.au.
But the once-mighty player ninemsn.com.au has lost 20% of its audience, according to figures released by online measurement company Nielsen on Wednesday.
Ninemsn’s drop from fourth to fifth position came after it severed its long-standing relationship with Microsoft, which has now set up its own Australian site, msn.com.au.
Fairfax’s other masthead, theage.com.au, did not fare so well, dropping from sixth to eighth place in the month of October and falling behind Guardian Australia and Yahoo!7.
A digital-only news operation in Australia, Guardian Australia has had a record month, moving up from seventh into sixth position and achieving its largest audience since launch in May 2013.
The Guardian Australia now has a unique audience over two million for the first time, recording 2.085m, ahead of the Herald Sun’s 1.895m.
The other new entrant in Australia’s digital space, the Daily Mail Australia, held onto fifth spot with a unique audience of 2.443m.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned national title the Australian, which is behind a paywall, is in 14th spot with a unique audience of 1.229m, just behind the Huffington Post, which has yet to launch a dedicated Australian site.
The Daily Telegraph and Courier Mail news sites, which sit behind metered paywalls, are outside the top 10, in 11th and 12th spot respectively.
The Nielsen online rankings count the online audience only, not the readers of the printed products, which are counted in another survey by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, out on Friday.
