Sport, rental crisis and entertainment saw more than 20 million Australians used a news website or app in July – Ipsos iris data

News

Sport, rental crisis and entertainment saw more than 20 million Australians used a news website or app in July – Ipsos iris data

New social media platform Threads attracts an audience of 1.6 million, online dating usage surges

21 August 2023 – Major news including sport such as the State of Origin and Ashes, the rental crisis, the Voice Referendum and entertainment related stories including the Logies and death of singer Sinead O’Connor, drove strong interest among Australians in July, with 20.1 million people using news websites and apps, according to Ipsos iris, Australia’s digital audience measurement currency endorsed by the IAB Australia.

People spent an average of five hours a month consuming news content in July.

The News category includes audience and time spent online on both general news and broader news content including weather, sport, lifestyle, entertainment, and business news.

The chart below shows the News brands’ ranking during July 2023 by online audience size.

Australians aged 14+ spent 3.8 hours per day, or 117 hours per month, online in July, an increase of 4.9% compared to June.

The largest audience increases were in the energy supplier/ utilities category, which climbed 12.0%, events and attractions, up 7.2% and sports, up 4.7% in July compared to June. The events and attractions category was fuelled by the launch of the Barbie and Oppenheimer films, coined ‘Barbenheimer’. The Ashes and start of the Women’s World Cup football saw usage increases in sport.

The most consumed website and app categories in July were social networking at 20.9 million, followed by search engines (20.9 million), technology (20.8 million) and retail and commerce (20.6 million).

People aged 25-39 were the largest cohort online during June, while people aged 40 to 54 spent the most time online.

In other Ipsos iris insights, since its launch in early July, Meta’s new social platform and X (Twitter) rival Threads has an Australian audience of 1.6 million who used the app during the month of July.

Overall in the category, 20.7 million people used a social media website or app during July, with 99% of all online Australians using some sort of social networking website or app.

Among the social media platforms available, usage of online dating websites and apps surged by 13.4% to 3 million in July.

Instant messaging was used by 19.2 million people in July, followed by email at 17.7 million, and online forums at 12.7 million..

Facebook and Messenger are the number one social networking brand group, followed closely by YouTube.

X (Twitter) is in the top 10 brand group but has seen a drop in audience of 8.7% compared to June and its lowest audience to date.  When it comes to social networking apps, Snapchat makes it into the top 10, while LinkedIn and X have more website than app usage.

The Ipsos iris data found that different social networking brand groups appeal to different audiences. For example, Facebook, Messenger, and YouTube have very broad appeal as most online Australians 14+ are using them at least once in a month.

Instagram has the strongest appeal among women aged under 40, while TikTok’s strongest audience is the under 25s. LinkedIn’s largest audience is women aged 25 to 39, followed by men aged 40 to 54, while X (Twitter) skews heavily towards men, with the largest audience being men aged 25 to 39. Reddit’s largest audience is also men aged 25 to 39.

The chart below shows the social networking brands’ ranking during July 2023 by online audience size.

Ipsos iris, which officially launched in March, provides accurate data about the 21 million Australians aged 14+ who access a wide variety of digital content and services across smartphone, PC/laptop and tablet devices.

Notes for editors:

  • Ipsos iris is an independent source of truth for the media industry providing a level playing field for comparison of audience reach and characteristics and supporting the $14.2 billion Australian online advertising market*.
  • Ipsos iris provides accuracy in solving cross-device deduplication, the biggest challenge in measuring online audiences, using a single-source multi-device panel measuring activity on 8,000 smartphone, PC, laptop and tablet devices
  • Ipsos iris provides accurate data about the number of people who visit the content of digital publishers and platforms, along with the frequency of visits and time spent by tracking digital audience behaviour across desktop/laptop, smartphone, and tablets.  It uses a hybrid methodology that combines metered data from a high quality, nationally representative, single-source passive panel with site-centric census measurement via media owner tagging.
  • Later this year CTV audience currency integration from a data partnership with OzTAM will provide total unduplicated digital audience currency data for CTV, smartphones, tablets, and computers.
  • Ipsos iris is fully privacy compliant and cross-media ready and will continue to evolve with a roadmap of enhancements over 2023 and beyond. It will also be adaptable to changing requirements as the industry develops in future years.
  • The launch of Ipsos iris with monthly data from January 2023 was the culmination of extensive work by the IAB and its Measurement Council that commenced in early 2021 with a strategic review of industry requirements. Ipsos was awarded the IAB’s endorsement, having best met the standards on criteria across all areas of product along with criteria for operations and a future roadmap.
  • Further information can be found at: https://iris-au.ipsos.com/

*Source: IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER CY2022) prepared by PwC Australia