Daily audience traffic to SBS’s News and Current Affairs online platforms reached record levels in 2019, highlighting a significant opportunity to further increase audience engagement to reach the full potential of the SBS News brand.

An intensive focus on the SBS World News digital platforms over the past two years has increased traffic to the website, which peaked during 2018-19 as the twelfth most popular news website among Australian audiences – a significant feat as SBS sits alongside global and domestic brands that have massive scale.

Improvements to the digital output for News and Current Affairs programs Insight, Dateline and The Feed, including delivering more distinctive content with higher frequency across new websites, have delivered impressive increases in audience engagement.

SBS World News saw unique visitors up 30 per cent year on year, Dateline tripled its video content consumption, and Insight episodes continued to rank among SBS On Demand’s best performing programs.

SBS VICELAND’s youth-focused news program, The Feed, continues to resonate among social media audiences. YouTube subscribers doubled, with more than 100 million minutes of The Feed’s unique, timely news commentary consumed on the platform. The Feed continued to focus on short-form video content, which remains popular among time-poor but socially engaged audiences, with video views up 2,000 per cent year on year.

The News and Current Affairs team has focused on keeping pace with the rate of digital change, looking towards enhancements to the SBS News website to offer greater accessibility and new digital features for audiences, with upgrades expected later in 2019.