Tuesday 22 December 2015

Which South African News Channel Has The Biggest presence Online?

With the world moving increasingly online to stay abreast with the latest news, South African news broadcasters too are spending more to put out a quality online product. But which news channel has the biggest presence online?

Image result for business day tv.com
5. Business Day TV 
Business Day TV's site ranks as the 9 352nd most popular site in South Africa. It is also important to note that Business Day TV's website is totally separate from the main Business Day website, which is quite popular in its own right (Business Day is the name of a newspaper, printed on paper, for you online only guys).
When it comes to audience engagement, BDTV does quite well. Its bounce rate, representing the amount of peope that leave the website after visiting only one page is 50%, lower than the rest of the websites listed here. The average visitor visits 2 pages per visit on the site and spends approximately 2 minutes and 14 seconds on the site. Just under 80 % of visitors to the site are visiting from South Africa.
The four most searched for terms directing visitors to the site are all related to its name: BDTV, "Business Day Live," " Business Day" and, quite creatively, "Businessday."

Twitter Followers:15 500+
Facebook Likes: 87 (On official page, as linked by their official website)

Image result for ann7.com
4. ANN7
ANN7 still has a long way to go to reach the top of the news mountain. The channel has the 5 513th most popular site in South Africa. The organisation should really be putting effort into its website if it wants to attract visitors. Articles are poorly written (Sometimes one whole article is one long paragraph), certain sections terribly maintained and some sections just seem as if it contains data that was there since the website was developed.

When it comes to bounce rate, which measures the percentage of viewers who leave the site after just one page, the channel actually does quite well with 61.8%, lower than that of the other general news channels. Average pageviews per visitor is also relatively good at 1.9 pages. Hoever, viewsers spend a relatively little amount of time on the site, with the average visitor staying for about 2 minutes and 2 seconds. The channel's online audience is also the most South Africa, at 90.7%  of visitors coming from SA.
The most searched for term that directed to ann7.com was "African News Network" with the next two most popular positions being held by phrases related to the channel's South African of the Year Awards.

Twitter Followers: 51 900+
Facebook Likes: 13 809

Image result for cnbcafrica.com
3. CNBC Africa
CNBCAfrica.com is the 3942nd most popular site in South Africa (Its rank in Nigeria is even better in the 3200s). It does however boast quite an educated audience base, with a large percentage not only attending university but actually completing graduate school.
When it comes to engagement, the site is doing not so well. It has the highest bounce rate at 72.6%, with a daily page views per visitor of 1.42.
Just under 35% of the site's viewers are from South Africa while 29% come from Nigeria, followed by India and the US.

Twitter Followers: 93 000+
Facebook Likes: 50424 (Official page only)

2. SABC News
The SABC's news portal ranks as the 345th most popular site in the country. This one site contains news aggregated from the organsations various divisions including regional radio stations.
85.2% of the website's visitors come from South Africa followed by (what I think is rather odd) India, then the US and the UK.
When it comes to visitor engagement, the site sees just red. Its bounce rate of 69% is 19% above its preceding three month average, its daily page view per visitor of 1.47 is 6.4% below its average and the average visitor stays for 19% less time at 1 minute 53 seconds.
The search term sending the most traffic to the site is ' renamo,' the Mozambican National Resistance.
Twitter Followers: 560 000+(@SABCNewsOnline only)
Facebook Likes: 214 151

1. eNCA
Image result for enca.com
Being the most watched news channel on the DStv platform translated to having the most visitors online for eNCA. enca.com is the 122nd most popular site in all of South Africa and 18 235th in the world. Though eighteen thousand is a large amount, this position is actually an improvement of 6700 positions as compared to the prior three months.

When it comes to engagement on the website, eNCA's bounce rate, which measures how many visitors leave the site after viewing only one page is 62.1% (slighty worse than ANN7's and much better than SABC News'), with the average daily visitor viewing 1.78 pages per visit. The average visitor also spends 2 minutes and 55 seconds on the site, the longest time of the bigger channels.
enca.com's visitors are also 'less South African,' with 84.7% of its visitors coming from South Africa. Nigeria, the US, India and the UK are respectively the next most popular countries to visit the site.
The most popular phrase searched for that sent viewers to enca.com was "new human ancestor," referencing the Homo Naledi discovery earlier this year. (Interestingly, more visitors directed to enca.com comes from google.com and NOT from google.co.za)

Twitter Followers: 740 000+
Facebook Likes: 360 213+
[Having the most viewers does not necessarily mean having the largest online presence though. CNN has the most popular website among US broadcasters by a large margin, yet is the third most watched pay tv news channel there]

The data above is courtesy of Alexa Competitive Intellegence.

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