Games Fever Builds On Olympics Web Site

Games Fever Builds On Olympics Web Site

Heralding the World’s First Web Games, Nielsen//NetRatings Discovers An Early Stampede To Olympics.Com

Auckland – 4 September, 2000 – With just three weeks to go before the torch gets lit at Sydney, the number of Australians flocking to the Games’ official website suggests that Olympics fever is getting into full swing across the Tasman.

Figures released today by Nielsen//NetRatings Internet audience measurement service (at-home panel) show Australian online traffic visiting Olympics.com surged -- with the numbers of unique visitors trebling from a healthy 36,000 in May to 94,000 in July.

“Along with routine sports fever, the enthusiasm is being fueled by an explosion in the numbers of personal computers,” Brian Milnes, Managing Director, ACNielsen eRatings.com Pacific said.

“For the first time the Olympics will have a truly global audience online.”

Up from 504,000 in May, the Olympics’ site jumped to 1.65 million total page views in July.

The average time spent per person at the site also increased. Visitors happy with seven minutes of information in May stayed for 10 in July.

And the site has a growing international audience: bolstering expectations of big out of time zone audiences once the Games start, the site registered 122,000 Americans visiting in July.

“Nielsen//NetRatings is uniquely positioned to monitor and report global web traffic for the Olympics,” Mr Milnes said. “I expect a wide range of sites related to the Olympics will now start to show up very strongly in our August and September data as people’s interest in the games climbs to a peak.”

This announcement comes as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced a ban on streaming video of Olympic coverage.

“We’ll be very interested to watch how viewer habits change with this Olympics,” added Milnes. “Will people in other time zones check on competition results and winners on the web, or will they wait and watch delayed television coverage on international networks?”

About ACNielsen eRatings.com
ACNielsen eRatings.com is a venture between ACNielsen (NYSE: ART) and NetRatings Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRT). ACNielsen is the world's leading market research firm, offering measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics, consumer attitudes and behaviour, and new and traditional media in more than 100 countries, and NetRatings is the leading provider of Internet audience measurement technology and analysis. Through the Nielsen//NetRatings service, ACNielsen eRatings.com is creating the first global service for tracking audiences, advertising and user activity on the Internet in more than 30 countries worldwide.
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