USA Today (128.8 million, down 19%) was the fastest faller among the group, followed by CNN (345.1 million, down 14%) and BBC News (112.3 million, down 11%). However they are also in spite of an eventful February for US news which included an airplane crash in Washington DC and an Oval Office row between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Since November 2023 Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. The smallest increases were seen at the AP (4%), MSN (3%) and CNN (2%), while the New York Post lost a negligible proportion of traffic. Fox News and Yahoo Finance (155.9 million) were respectively flat and up 3% compared with last year.
The biggest riser already on the charts was progressive news site Raw Story, which climbed eight spots to 37th place on the back of a 24% month-on-month traffic increase to 33.2 million. The contraction is particularly pronounced among the top ten US news sites by traffic, where eight publishers saw visits drop compared to July. Going the opposite direction, however, was the US outpost of fellow British publisher The Sun (22.2 million visits), which dropped 15 places to 50th on the back of 34.9% month-on-month and 65.1% year-on-year traffic declines. Athlon Sports (up 218.4% year-on-year to 35 million) was the fastest riser in the ranks of the top 50, jumping eight places to 33rd on the back of 18% month-on-month traffic growth, the second most growth of any publisher in the top 50. Also possibly reflecting interest in the US presidential election, the fastest monthly growth among the top 50 was seen at Real Clear Politics, where visits were up nearly 40% compared with September. Among the broader top 50 news sites in the US, sports news site athlonsports.com (34.7 million) continued its reign as the fastest-growing publisher, nearly quadrupling its web visits compared to October 2023.
Men’s Journal was the fastest growing top-50 news website in the US in May, quadrupling its traffic compared to the same month a year earlier. Of the 50 biggest news websites by visits in June, 34 saw month-on-month growth (up from 15 in May) and 29 saw a year-on-year increase (up from 14 last month). Al.com saw the biggest month-on-month growth at 14%, and was one of just six websites to see an increase in visits compared to July.
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On the other end of the scale the fastest year-on-year traffic losses were seen by the Los Angeles Times (25.8 million, down 30% on October 2023), the Daily Mail (104.1 million, down 22.8%) and Fox News. The fastest-growing top-ten site month-on-month was USA Today, followed by aggregator Google News (122.4 million, up 8.6%) and People. At the start of October the site deployed a new paywall, which does not appear to have immediately hurt its web visits. CNN (425 million) remains the most-visited news site in the US despite an 11.8% year-on-year decrease in traffic — the only fall among the top ten besides Fox News (258.1 million), which lost 22.5% of its October 2023 traffic. Thirty websites in the top 50 also saw their visits grow year-on-year in October, as well as eight of the top ten.
- The shortest month of the year is packed with highly anticipated new releases, including books from Michael Pollan, Tayari Jones and the late Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa.
- Visits to the news magazine’s website were up 198% compared to May 2023 to 95.5 million but it was beaten by two specialist newsbrands.
- The biggest decline in the top ten was at syndication website MSN, down 10% month on month and 38% year on year to 145.2 million visits in fifth place.
- Visits to the popular magazine’s website were up 18% month-on-month to 165.3 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
The most notable result of the change appears to be that it has bounced CNN (525 million visits) ahead of The New York Times (385.7 million) to retake the top spot on the traffic ranking. Year-on-year, however, the fastest growth was at sports publisher Athlon Sports, which has been the case among the US top 50 every month since May. Further down the rankings The Daily Beast was the highest debuting publication, entering the top 50 at 39th place after seeing traffic rise 22% month-on-month to 30 million. Mail Online remained steady at ninth place with 122.2 million visits while Google News (120.8 million) jumped three places to tenth despite losing 4% of traffic month-on-month, displacing Newsweek (115.7 million) from the top ten. But in August People.com (162.6 million visits) and Yahoo Finance (162.8 million) were the only top ten sites to continue growing their traffic, by 3% and 2% respectively.
The paper has reportedly suffered subscription cancellations in recent months after proprietor Patrick Soon-Shiong intervened to block its editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris in the US presidential election. The Los Angeles Times more than doubled its web traffic month-on-month in January as its home city battled historic wildfires. The other six top-ten sites lost visits, although Fox News (260.5 million) dropped less than a percentage point. The Gateway Pundit, a website that promoted false claims the 2020 US presidential election was stolen, was not far behind, rising 9% month-on-month to 29.5 million. The sharpest month-on-month fall was seen at January’s fastest grower, The Los Angeles Times.
