ninemsn.com.au/news
Sydney, Australia, Monday 2 March 2009: ninemsn announced today that Andrew Hunter has been appointed the new Head of News, Sport and Finance for the online publisher. The internal promotion comes after more than three years at ninemsn where Hunter began as News Editor. Hunter will lead a substantial team based at ninemsn in Sydney and within the Nine newsrooms in Sydney and Melbourne.
Hal Crawford has been appointed Executive Producer for News and Finance at ninemsn. Crawford has been promoted from News Editor and will continue working closely with the Nine TV teams to deliver the latest breaking news and video updates on the Nine News site. Crawford has been employed with ninemsn for more than two years.
The announcements coincide with the launch of ninemsn's new image-centric news article section, News at a Glance today. Featuring high-quality, large-sized images and text, News at a Glance incorporates scrolling navigation that allows people to view and digest news articles in a more connective, image-based format in quick succession like a slideshow.
"Through great reporting, developments in video, integration with the Nine TV teams and continued innovations such as News at a Glance, I am confident we can further strengthen our position as the leading online news destination in the country," said Hunter.
The launch of News at a Glance comes at a time when consumption of online news, finance, sport and weather is at an all-time high for ninemsn. The past few weeks have seen record traffic to the National Nine News site with the largest amount of page impressions recorded in one day on Monday February 9, 2009 during the coverage of the Victorian bushfires.
17.1 million page views were recorded on February 9 which equated to a 250% increase in average day page views. In addition, 1.4 million video streams – about 10-15% of the total ninemsn monthly figure – were viewed in just three days during the bushfire crisis.*
Ninemsn has also seen significant growth in online video over the past two years with approximately 1 million streams a month in 2006 to over 10 million a month in 2008. November 2008 was a record month for the publisher with 11.2 million streams recorded, representing a 23% increase in streams compared to November 2007.*
Ninemsn's sport site, WWOS.com.au, hit a one-day record 4 million page views during the third Test against South Africa on January 6.* Live scoring of that match in WWOS's Baggygreen site was the main driver of the record number.
January 2009 was another record traffic month for the ninemsn Weather site with nearly 7.3 million page impressions recorded, or 135% increase in the monthly average for the site last year. Monthly unique browsers were also at record levels with over 775,000 unique browsers equating to a 73% increase on the monthly average from last year. *
The world economic crisis has sent many Australian’s looking for finance information online and the ninemsn Money site has recorded significantly higher traffic each month since September 2008. Over the last 5 months, 1.2 million unique browsers visited ninemsn Money on average each month, an increase of over 70% on the same time last year. Page impressions averaged 9 million per month over the last 5 months, peaking in October 2008 with 13.2 million, which was more than a 300% increase in page impressions year on year.*
In recent months, a number of other new technologies and innovations within the ninemsn news offering have been successfully launched and continue to attract large audience numbers to the site.
These include:
- The Flock which tracks the stories the ninemsn audience is rating highly and commenting on
- 6pm bulletin live streaming of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane news bulletins each night
- Live breaking news video streamed in collaboration with the Nine News TV teams and market leading live streaming technology, delivers news as it happens and direct to the desktop
- 9RAW video in its unpackaged, extended format adds context to news stories and delivers about 1 million streams each month of 9 RAW footage
- Nine News on mobile is one of the greatest innovations in delivering news in text, picture and video forms. Nine News is the leading mobile news service in Australia with a regular audience of over 56,000 people daily
National Nine News is the leader in online news in Australia, with an average of 485,000 daily UBs in January 2009, ahead of smh.com.au and News.com.au. National Nine News experienced a 12 per cent growth in average daily UBs from last month, further increasing its lead over its competitors.
-ENDS-
NOTES TO EDITORS:
SOURCE: *Omniture Site Catalyst, ⁺Nielsen Online Market Intelligence, January 2009.
For further information, please contact:
Nelly Assayag, Publicist, ninemsn 02 8001 4198, nelly.assayag@ninemsn.com.au
