September 17th, 2019

CNN Saw its Second Largest Digital Audience Ever in August; Remains the #1 Global News Brand Across Digital Properties

#1 IN AUDIENCE REACH, MOBILE, VIDEO, MILLENNIAL REACH, POLITICS & SOCIAL

 

CNN’s digital audience in the US in August 2019 was its second largest on record behind July 2019, with an astounding 138 million unique visitors and 122 million mobile unique visitors, meaning more people are getting their news from CNN than any other outlet. The strong digital audience was particularly notable in August, which tends to be a slower month for news traffic across the board due to the summer holidays.

Surpassing the BBC and Sky News, CNN held its position as the #1 global digital news brand in July 2019 (July data is the most current available). CNN came in again as the #1 digital news outlet domestically in August 2019 in the key categories of multiplatform unique visitors, mobile unique visitors, multiplatform video starts (July 2019), millennial unique visitors, social audience and political unique visitors, continuing its long streak of success.

#1 IN GLOBAL NEWS
CNN saw a global audience of 166 million unique multiplatform visitors in July 2019 (data most current available), 18 million more than second place BBC and 49 million more than third place Yahoo News.

CNN.COM*: 166 Million Multiplatform Unique Visitors

  • BBC – 148 million unique visitors
  • Yahoo News – 117 million unique visitors
  • FoxNews.com – 111 million unique visitors
  • The New York Times Brand – 106 million unique visitors
  • DailyMail.co.uk – 104 million unique visitors

 

Source: Comscore Media Metrix®, Custom-Defined List, Total Digital Audience, July 2019, Worldwide Rollup. Based on CNN.com entity compared to a custom list of single brand, English-language, global competitors in the News/Information Category, including The United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom and Vietnam. CNN Brand entity used prior to October 2018. (July 2019 data is the most current available).

 

#1 IN MULTIPLATFORM VISITORS
CNN broke records in August 2019 with an audience size of 138 million unique multiplatform visitors domestically – 40 million more unique visitors than second-place Washington Post and 41 million more unique visitors than third-place Fox News. August 2019 also marked CNN’s 28th month in a row of an audience of more than 100 million unique visitors, while all other competitors fell below that threshold.

CNN.COM*: 138 Million Multiplatform Unique Visitors

  • WashingtonPost.com – 98 million unique visitors
  • FoxNews.com – 97 million unique visitors
  • The New York Times Brand – 90 million unique visitors
  • NBCNews.com – 80 million unique visitors
  • Dailymail.co.uk – 73 million unique visitors

 

 

Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-Defined List, Total Digital Audience – Desktop Persons 2+ and Total Mobile Persons 13+, August 2019, U.S. Based on CNN.com entity compared to a custom list of single brand competitors that are also in the News/Information Category. CNN Brand entity used prior to October 2018. Biggest month ever claim is based on Persons 18+ prior to January 2017 and Persons 13+ after. 

#1 IN MOBILE UNIQUE VISITORS 
CNN continued to lead and grow its mobile audience in August with 122 million mobile unique visitors – 36 million more mobile users than second-place Washington Post and 40 million more than third-place Fox News.

CNN.COM*: 122 Million Mobile Unique Visitors

    • WashingtonPost.com– 86 million unique visitors
    • FoxNews.com– 82 million unique visitors
    • The New York Times Brand – 78 million unique visitors
    • NBCNews.com– 72 million unique visitors
    • DailyMail.co.uk – 69 million unique visitors

 

Source: Comscore Mobile Metrix®, Custom-Defined List, Total Mobile Persons 13+, August 2019, U.S. Based on CNN.com entity compared to a custom list of single brand competitors that are also in the News/Information Category. CNN Brand entity used prior to October 2018. Biggest month ever claim is based on Persons 18+ prior to January 2017 and Persons 13+ after.

 

 

#1 IN MULTIPLATFORM VIDEO STARTS
CNN’s leading streak in video continued again in July 2019 with 491 million multiplatform video starts, generating 169 million more video starts than its nearest competitor Yahoo News.

CNN.COM*: 491 Million Multiplatform Video Starts

    • Yahoo News – 322 million video starts
    • FoxNews.com – 309 million video starts
    • ABCNews.com Sites – 154 million video starts
    • MSN News – 146 million video starts
    • DailyMail.co.uk – 103 million video starts

 

Source: Comscore Video Metrix®, Custom-Defined List, Total Audience – Desktop Persons 2+ and Total Mobile Persons 18+ and OTT Persons 2+, July 2019, U.S. Based on CNN.com entity compared to a custom list of single brand competitors that are also in the News/Information Category.  CNN Brand entity used prior to October 2018. (July data is the most current available)

 

 

#1 IN MILLENNIAL REACH 
Continuing to reach a younger audience than any other digital news competitor, CNN ranked as the #1 news outlet in Millennial unique multiplatform visitors (between the ages of 18-34) with 36 million in August 2019.

CNN.COM*: 36 Million Millennial Unique Multiplatform Visitors 

      • DailyMail.co.uk – 29 million millennial unique visitors
      • The New York Times Brand – 26 million millennial unique visitors
      • WashingtonPost.com – 25 million millennial unique visitors
      • NBCNews.com – 20 million millennial unique visitors
      • FoxNews.com – 19 million millennial unique visitors

 

Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-Defined List, Digital Audience Persons 18-34, August 2019, U.S. Based on CNN.com entity compared to a custom list of single brand competitors in the News/Information Category. CNN Brand entity used prior to October 2018.

 

 

#1 POLITICAL NEWS SOURCE
As the 2020 campaign continued in August 2019, CNN continued to rank as the #1 online political news destination for the month with 45 million multiplatform unique visitors, 39 million mobile unique visitors and 56 million desktop video starts. CNN Politics has remained the #1 online political news outlet since August 2015 when the first person declared their candidacy for president in the 2016 race.

CNN Politics: 45 Million Multiplatform Unique Visitors

        • TheHill.com – 28 million unique visitors
        • Politico.com – 27 million unique visitors
        • Fox News Politics – 19 million unique visitors
        • WashingtonExaminer.com – 12 million unique visitors
        • MSNBC TV – 11 million unique visitors

 

Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, New/Information – Politics, Total Digital Audience – Desktop 2+ and Total Mobile 13+, August 2019, U.S.; Comscore Video Metrix®, CNN Politics, Total Audience – Desktop 2+, August 2019, U.S. CNN Politics has been #1 in the competitive rank in video and multiplatform views since August 2015. #1 claim is based on Persons 18+ prior to January 2017 and Persons 13+ after.

 

#1 IN SOCIAL MEDIA
CNN has ranked as the number one social news outlet in the US for more than six years with more fans and followers than any other competitor.

  • #1 U.S. news brand on Facebook with 49.0 million Facebook fans across CNN’s main accounts
  • #1 most followed news brand on Twitter with 98.2 million followers across CNN’s main accounts
    • @CNNBRK alone had 11.8 million more Twitter followers than the leading competitive flagship account (The New York Times – 43.9 mm followers) and 37.2 million more than Fox News (18.4 mm followers)
  • #1 most followed US news brand on Instagram with 8.2 million followers
Sources: Shareablee, August 2019. Brands included in comparison are CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, The New York Times, HuffPost, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, BBC News (UK), BuzzFeed, ABC News, NPR, Mashable, The Daily Mail, NowThis, AJ+, Al Jazeera English, NBC News, CBS News, HLN, and Yahoo News. Facebook main accounts for CNN are CNN and CNN International. Twitter main accounts for CNN are @CNN and @CNNBRK. Instagram for CNN includes flagship account only. Historical record begins January 2013.

 

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Press Contact: Emily.Kuhn@CNN.com