Breitbart Drops 94% in Four Years
TheRighting released its December 2024 election year traffic analysis of mobile and desktop traffic for right wing and mainstream news websites based on Comscore data.
Among the highlights of TheRighting’s December 2024 findings:
SIXTH STRAIGHT MONTH OF DOUBLE-DIGIT TRAFFIC GROWTH FOR TRUTH SOCIAL
The Donald-Trump-controlled Truth Social platform registered double-digit year-over-year (YOY) growth in unique visitors for the sixth consecutive month. Truth Social drew 3,782,000 unique visitors in December. That represented a 17% year-over-year YOY rise compared to December 2023, when the site attracted 3,236,000 unique visitors. However it was well below Truth Social’s peak of 5,672,000 unique visitors in July 2024, the month he was wounded in an assassination attempt.
Here are the December 2024 unique visitors for the three conservative-friendly social media platforms TheRighting follows:
–Rumble (5,361,000 unique visitors; +5% vs year ago)
–Truth Social (3,782,000; +17% vs year ago)
–Gettr (112,000; -27% vs year ago)
DECEMBER 2024 VS DECEMBER 2020
For the second month in a row, all 21 news websites analyzed by TheRighting during this four-year period experienced steep audience declines. The measurable sites with the largest percentage loss of unique visitors were The Federalist (-98%), Breitbart (-94%), Townhall (-94%), and the Washington Examiner (-83%).
“TheRighting’s four-year comparison indicates that massive audience erosion continues to plague news websites on the right and left,” said Howard Polskin, President, TheRighting. “It’s abundantly clear that this problem is not going away. I am not sure where the bottom lies.”
DECEMBER 2024 VS DECEMBER 2023
Almost half of the right wing news websites posted YOY traffic gains in the holiday month of December when news interest usually flags. Foxnews.com had its string of five consecutive months of audience increases broken as its unique visitors dipped by 3%. It still ranked as the most visited right wing website in December.
“Joe Biden’s early December pardon of his son Hunter sparked outrage in right wing media and delivered an early Christmas present to many conservative media outlets who benefited from intense audience interest in the Biden saga,” said Polskin.
The three mainstream news websites TheRighting regularly tracks posted declines in YOY unique visitors in December: CNN fell 14%, followed by the Washington Post (-13%) and the NY Times (-3%).
YOY Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Right Wing News Websites for Dec. 2024
(by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)
Winners
–The Gateway Pundit (+294%)
–Hannity.com (+39%)
–Washington Times (+35%)
Losers
–Townhall (-80%)
–Daily Caller (-70%)
–Washington Examiner (-66%)
Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-defined list, including, but not limited to Foxnews.com, Breitbart.com, DailyCaller.com, WashingtonExaminer.com, WesternJournal.com, Washingtontimes.com, Total Digital Audience, December 2024, U.S.