The Age has topped the list of the most viewed newspaper websites in the country, followed by The Sydney Morning Herald, the Herald Sun and The Australian according to a new report from Experian Hitwise.
The report claims more than 16.9 million visits were made to The Age website during August. The SMH topped 16.5 million and the Herald Sun 15.5 million. The fourth placed Australian finished well down with only 5.6 million visits for the month, while The Daily Telegraph rounded out the top five with 5.3 million visits.
And when it comes to visiting paywall sites, more Aussies are inclined to visit the British Financial Times compared to the Australian Financial Review, which finished 63rd with 291,000 visits on the list of global publications.
The Australian online editor Nick Hopkins said content was key to the success of digital subscriptions.
“The AFR does have some premium business content. However, its digital subscriptions are very expensive – about $1200 per year. It doesn’t have an app and the website is notoriously bad," Hopkins said.
“The Oz is confident it has what it needs to pull an audience. As well as regularly breaking the big stories and being the most influential voice in domestic and political issues, The Australian also has numerous specialist sections such as Business, Higher Education, Media and Aviation that are extremely valuable to readers."
The report also showed that The Australian Women's Weekly retained its status as the country's top ranking magazine. Its online content was viewed more than one million times for the month of August. ACP magazines had a total of four titles in the top 30 sites.
ACP director of media, public affairs, brand development Deborah Thomas said: “The website complements the print magazine. The Ninemsn team and The Australian Woman's Weekly team work together to ensure there is a mutual understanding of the brand and what is of interest to the readers.
“Newspapers face a different challenge to magazines when it comes to online content. Whereas newspapers offer the same material online as they do in print, ACP magazines offer complimentary content as well as historically interesting content online. Magazines have a different understanding of the web compared to newspapers.”
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