Terrorist Tragedy Sends New Zealanders Online

Terrorist Tragedy Sends New Zealanders Online To Monitor News As It Happens - Nielsen//NetRatings

Auckland – 12 September 2001 – In the period immediately following the first attack on the New York World Trade Centre, New Zealand and Australian web surfers flocked to US news sites to monitor the rapidly developing situation.

New Zealand at-home audiences to the US news site cnn.com were 371 percent higher than this site’s daily average audience during the month of August, reports the world’s leading web audience measurement company Nielsen//NetRatings. In Australia cnn.com’s home-based audience was 477 percent higher than the daily site average for August 2001.

The role of the Internet in providing up-to-date coverage of breaking stories and events was also reflected in significantly higher audience levels across a range of other US based web news sites.

Australian home audiences to msnbc.com were already up by more than 500 percent against MSNBC’s daily average audience in less than half a day. Similarly New York’s major daily newspaper web site nytimes.com had recorded 400 plus percent audience growth in the first twelve hours of today.

Audience usage patterns also reflected the high level of home surfer interest in both countries. Total time spent by New Zealand home based surfers at cnn.com grew by 1100 percent overall in the 12 hour period, and average time spent by each user on the site was 255 percent higher than the average time spent each day on this site during the August.

“As we did not record any significant growth in the number of page views recorded by visitors to US based news sites it is clear that our local surfers are focusing on main news page and perhaps also making much greater use of streaming video and audio links to stay in touch with the latest breaking news,” said Brian Milnes, Managing Director, Nielsen//NetRatings Australasian operations.

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Nielsen//NetRatings reports on Internet audiences and advertising in 26 countries worldwide, representing more than 90 percent of the global Internet audience universe. The countries are: the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Israel and Mexico. The total estimated Internet audience universe in these countries is nearly 379 million individuals.

Through strategic partnerships between NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen, the Nielsen//NetRatings audience measurement service collects real-time data from more than 225,000 individuals with access to the Internet around the world. The U.S. panel sample currently consists of 62,000 individuals with Internet access at home and 8,000 individuals with Internet access at work. International panels are under development with over 155,000 individuals with access at home currently being measured in 26 countries, representing 90percent of global Internet browser activity.

Nielsen//NetRatings uses unique technology capable of measuring both Internet use and advertising to provide the most timely, accurate and comprehensive Internet usage data and advertising information in the global marketplace. Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the entire spectrum of Internet user behaviour, leveraging proprietary data-collection technology from NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research's 50 years of expertise in research and audience measurement, and ACNielsen's international leadership in offering market research information covering more than 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.

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