Majority of Right Wing News Websites Grew Audience in Critical Month
TheRighting released its November 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 November 2024 findings:
FIFTH STRAIGHT MONTH OF DOUBLE-DIGIT TRAFFIC GROWTH FOR TRUTH SOCIAL
For the fifth consecutive month, the Donald-Trump-controlled Truth Social platform generated significant year-over-year (YOY) growth in unique visitors. Truth Social attracted 4,250,000 unique visitors in November 2024 compared to 3,066,000 in November 2023 for a 39% increase in YOY traffic. However, the upstart Bluesky, which has been offering a progressive-friendly alternative to the more rightward-leaning X since early 2024, generated 5,352,000 unique visitors in November, surpassing Truth Social by just over 100,000 unique visitors. Bluesky also registered a massive YOY change of 1,048%.
“Bluesky’s huge year-over-year growth is not surprising because the platform only opened registrations to the general public in February 2024,” said Howard Polskin, President, TheRighting. “However, in a short period of time, Bluesky is already attracting more monthly unique visitors than Truth Social which launched to the public in February 2022 and has benefited greatly by Mr. Trump’s constant use of his platform.”
Here are the November 2024 unique visitors for the three conservative-friendly social media platforms TheRighting follows:
–Rumble (6,119,00 unique visitors; +1% vs year ago)
–Truth Social (4,250,000; +39% vs year ago)
–Gettr (215,000; +92% vs year ago)
NOVEMBER 2024 VS NOVEMBER 2023
Most right wing and mainstream news websites posted YOY traffic increases in November owing to the intense interest in the November 5 presidential election. For the fifth consecutive month, Foxnews.com generated gains in YOY audience. The site pulled in 91,911,000 unique visitors in November which was 18% higher than November 2023.
All three mainstream news websites TheRighting regularly follows experienced traffic growth in November. Unique visitors to the NY Times ballooned 27% in November while the Washington Post (+14%) and CNN (+6%) also saw their YOY unique visitors increase.
YOY Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Right Wing News Websites for November 2024
(by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)
Winners
–The Gateway Pundit (+417%)
–Washington Times (+72%)
–TheBlaze (+59%)
Losers
–Townhall (-54%)
–Daily Signal (-53%)
–Washington Examiner (-43%)
NOVEMBER 2024 VS NOVEMBER 2020
All 21 news websites monitored by TheRighting during this period experienced loss of audience, including some with precipitous drops. The sites with the largest percentage loss of unique visitors were Breitbart (-95%), The Federalist (-94%) and Townhall (-93%).
“The sagging traffic numbers for right wing and mainstream outlets represent another concerning sign of major audience erosion for traditional news platforms,” said Polskin. “Even more disturbing, more than half of the sites had declines of more than 50% for the presidential election month of November 2020.”
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, November 2024, U.S.
