CNN Digital Ends 2019 At #1: Leads All Competitors In December
#1 IN GLOBAL AND DOMESTIC UNIQUE VISITORS, MOBILE, VIDEO, MILLENNIALS, POLITICS & SOCIAL IN DECEMBER
CNN’s digital audience ended 2019 outpacing all competitors in December to close out the year as the leader in digital news, according to data from both Adobe Analytics and Comscore.
Adobe Analytics reported that CNN’s global digital audience in December 2019 was 301 million, the 4th biggest month ever for mobile audience.
Data from Comscore’s monthly competitive report reaffirmed the high traffic seen in Adobe data, reporting CNN’s digital audience in the US in December 2019 was 133 million unique visitors and 117 million mobile unique visitors. CNN showed its strength as the #1 digital news outlet in December in the key categories of multiplatform unique visitors, mobile unique visitors, multiplatform video starts (November 2019), millennial unique visitors, social audience and political unique visitors, continuing its long streak of success. Data across both sources shows that more people are getting their news online from CNN than from any other outlet.
In December 2019, CNN Politics had its biggest month ever in mobile with 53 million mobile unique visitors and its second biggest month ever in total audience with 59 million unique visitors, only behind November 2016, according to Comscore.
CNN also passed the BBC again in international audience, holding its position as the #1 global digital news brand in November 2019 (November data is the most current available), according to Comscore.
#1 IN GLOBAL NEWS
CNN saw a larger global audience than any other news platform in the world in November 2019, with 154 million unique multiplatform visitors (data most current available), 4 million more than second place BBC and 35 million more than third place The Daily Mail.
CNN.COM*: 154 Million Multiplatform Unique Visitors
- BBC – 150 million unique visitors
- DailyMail.co.uk – 119.2 million unique visitors
- Yahoo News – 119.1 million unique visitors
- The New York Times Brand – 114 million unique visitors
- FoxNews.com – 103 million unique visitors
Source: Comscore MMX® Multi-Platform, Custom-Defined List, Total Digital Audience, November 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. (November 2019 data is the most current available).
#1 IN US MULTIPLATFORM VISITORS
CNN posted 133 million unique multiplatform visitors domestically – 35 million more unique visitors than second-place Fox News in December 2019, which also marked CNN’s 31st month in a row of an audience of more than 100 million unique visitors.
CNN.COM*: 133 Million Multiplatform Unique Visitors
- FoxNews.com – 98 million unique visitors
- The New York Times Brand – 96 million unique visitors
- com – 92 million unique visitors
- com – 81 million unique visitors
- com – 80 million unique visitors
Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-Defined List, Total Digital Audience – Desktop Persons 2+ and Total Mobile Persons 13+, December 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.
#1 IN US MOBILE UNIQUE VISITORS
Mobile audiences on CNN platforms continued to top 100 million in December with 117 million mobile unique visitors – 33 million more mobile unique visitors than second-place The New York Times and 34 million more than third-place Fox News.
CNN.COM*: 117 Million Mobile Unique Visitors
- The New York Times Brand – 84 million unique visitors
- com – 83 million unique visitors
- com – 78 million unique visitors
- com – 73 million unique visitors
- The Daily Mail – 71 million unique visitors
Source: Comscore Mobile Metrix®, Custom-Defined List, Total Mobile Persons 13+, December 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.
#1 IN US MULTIPLATFORM VIDEO STARTS
CNN again ranked as #1 in digital video with 495 million multiplatform video starts, generating 160 million more video starts than its nearest competitor Yahoo News in November 2019 (data most current available).
CNN.COM*: 495 Million Multiplatform Video Starts
- Yahoo News – 336 million video starts
- com – 303 million video starts
- MSNBC TV – 162 million video starts
- com Sites – 141 million video starts
- MSN News – 117 million video starts
Source: Comscore Video Metrix®, Custom-Defined List, Total Audience – Desktop Persons 2+ and Total Mobile Persons 18+ and OTT Persons 2+, November 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. (November data is the most current available)
#1 IN US MILLENNIAL REACH
CNN saw a larger audience of millennial unique visitors (between the ages of 18-34) than any other competitor in December 2019 with 36 million unique visitors.
CNN.COM*: 36 Million Millennial Unique Multiplatform Visitors
- The New York Times Brand – 29 million millennial unique visitors
- com – 26 million millennial unique visitors
- The Daily Mail – 24 million millennial unique visitors
- com – 22 million millennial unique visitors
- com – 21 million millennial unique visitors
Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-Defined List, Digital Audience Persons 18-34, December 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 US POLITICAL NEWS SOURCE
Heading into the 2020 calendar year, CNN Politics continued to reign on top of all political news sources, as the #1 ranked political news destination with 59 million multiplatform unique visitors, 53 million mobile unique visitors in December 2019 and 78 million multiplatform video starts in November 2019. December 2019 was the biggest month ever for CNN Politics mobile audience and second biggest month for total audience behind November 2016. CNN Politics has remained the #1 online political news outlet since March 2015 when the first person declared their candidacy for president in the 2016 race.
CNN Politics: 59 Million Multiplatform Unique Visitors
- com – 35 million unique visitors
- com – 26 million unique visitors
- Fox News Politics – 21 million unique visitors
- com Politics – 19 million unique visitors
- MSNBC TV – 13 million unique visitors
Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, New/Information – Politics, Total Digital Audience – Desktop 2+ and Total Mobile 13+, December 2019, U.S.; Comscore Video Metrix®, CNN Politics, Total Audience – Desktop 2+, December 2019, U.S. CNN Politics has been #1 in the competitive rank in multiplatform views since March 2015.
#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 49.2 million Facebook fans across CNN’s main accounts
- #1 most followed news brand on Twitter with 100.0 million followers across CNN’s main accounts
- @CNNBRK alone had over 11.5 million more monthly average Twitter followers than the leading competitive flagship account (The New York Times – 44.6 mm followers)
- #1 most followed U.S. news brand on Instagram with 9.1 million monthly average followers.
Sources: Shareablee, December 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.
###