TheRighting released its May 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 May 2024 findings:
MAY 2024 VS MAY 2020: THE ELECTION YEAR COMPARISON
Of the 21 news websites surveyed by TheRighting for its election year comparison, only The Epoch Times posted an increase in year-over-year (YOY) traffic between May 2020 and May 2024. The site grew its unique visitors from 5,294,000 in May 2020 to 5,817,000 in May 2024, a ten percent gain.
Many news websites, especially on the right, suffered significant audience losses in that four-year period. The Federalist (-95%), Breitbart (-90%), Townhall (-89%) and The Washington Examiner (-88%) were among the biggest losers between May 2020 and May 2024.
Mainstream new outlets continued to experience audience erosion, although not as severe as more conservative outlets. The New York Times (-29%), CNN (-36%) and The Washington Post (-56%) all saw their traffic sag during the four-year period.
“The news headlines that dominated May 2020 were the ongoing pandemic crisis and the murder of George Floyd by a white policeman that sparked widespread civil unrest. That drove traffic to news websites,” said Howard Polskin, President and Founder, TheRighting. “However, last month I expected the nonstop coverage of campus unrest, Michael Cohen’s dramatic courtroom testimony, and the Trump guilty verdict to drive more eyeballs to news websites. News audiences seem to be vanishing.”
MAY 2024 VS MAY 2023
Three right wing news websites posted YOY increases in traffic: The Gateway Pundit, Hannity.com and RedState. The rest of the right wing sites tracked by TheRighting saw unique visits drop from May 2023 to May 2024.
The New York Times had its YOY audience increase 10% between May 2023 and May 2024. However, the two other mainstream news websites TheRighting surveys monthly experienced YOY audience losses. Traffic to CNN, which led all news websites monitored by TheRighting with 105,994,000 unique visitors in May 2024, dropped 7%. A decrease was also recorded at The Washington Post (-21%).
YOY Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Right Wing News Websites for May 2024
(by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)
Winners
–The Gateway Pundit (+103%)
–Hannity.com (+66%)
–RedState (+14%)
Losers
–Daily Signal (-80%)
–The Federalist (-79%)
–Washington Examiner (-72%)
The Truth About Truth Social Traffic
Truth Social recorded its second straight month of YOY audience declines. The social media platform attracted only 2,786,000 unique visitors, its next-to-worst performance since launching in February 2022. Here are the April unique visitors for the three conservative-friendly social media platforms TheRighting follows:
–Rumble (5,653,000 unique visitors; -60% vs year ago)
–Truth Social 2,786,000; -14% vs year ago)
–Gettr (157,000; -36% vs year ago)
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, May 2024, U.S.
