Top news sites collectively received 7.5% fewer visits on the Tuesday and Wednesday of the 2024 US election than they did on those days in 2020, data from Similarweb shows.

The Associated Press, Substack and Axios were among the sites with the most growth between the two elections, while Politico, Fox News, The Guardian and The New York Times all lost substantial proportions of their traffic – according to Similarweb.

After aggregator Yahoo.com (130.6 million visits on Tuesday 5 and Wednesday 6 November) CNN was the most-visited news site in the US, drawing 109.1 million clicks. That figure is down 19.4% on the same days in the 2020 election.

The New York Times (62.4 million) was the second most-visited publisher, but its traffic too dropped 36.3%. Fox News, the third most popular publisher on the list, saw traffic drop 46.8% when compared with the 2020 election, the fifth-largest fall among the top 50 most-visited sites.

Among the ten most-visited news sites over election night, Fox was the biggest faller, followed by The New York Times and CNN. The AP (47.6 million visits, up 247.1%) was the biggest gainer, followed by NBC News (44.3 million, up 120.2%) and USA Today (27.7 million, up 70.1%). The rest of the top ten saw single-digit percentage point changes.

The significant declines at the most-visited sites may reflect broader news avoidance trends or the relative speed with which the result of the 2024 election became clear. The 2020 election, in comparison, took days to be called.

Among the broader top 50 election night news sites the fastest grower was Axios, which saw visits grow 291.7% from 1.8 million in 2020 to 7.2 million last week.

Faster growing still was publishing platform Substack (5.1 million, up 423.1%), which hosts publications by numerous journalists and was less than three years old at the time of the last election.

Web culture site The Daily Dot (2.2m, up 287.5%), Al Jazeera (3.3 million, up 204.2%) and People magazine (11.5 million, up 115.5%) also substantially outperformed their 2020 traffic totals.

The biggest fall, on the other hand, was at Politico (8.8 million visits in 2024, down 63.7% from its 2020 total of 24.3 million), followed by Yahoo News (5.4 million, down 54.8%) and Business Insider (4.2 million, down 48.8%). The Guardian (10.6 million, down 45.2%) Google News (11.3 million, down 40.2%) and Breitbart (3.9 million, down 48.5%) were all also significantly hit.

NBC News, Associated Press and climate site The Cooldown saw largest election week traffic surges

Similarweb data also shows that, among the 100 top news sites in the US, NBC News saw the largest week-on-week increase in its web traffic over the week of the election, with visits nearly tripling compared with the week before.

Climate website The Cooldown saw a comparable increase of 209.4% and the AP received 207% more traffic than the previous week.

A handful of sites saw fewer visits the week of the election than the week before, among them Cosmopolitan (down 15.1%), Variety (down 13.2%) and Vogue (down 8%).

The post Top publishers saw less traffic on day of 2024 US election versus 2020 appeared first on Press Gazette.

The re-election of Donald Trump has been followed by a boost to the share prices of several publicly-traded news businesses.

The rises, which are part of a broader record-setting surge in the US stock market following the election, indicate the market has bet on growth at these companies under the new administration.

But they put investor confidence at odds with the mood of many journalists in the US who see Trump’s campaign trail threats as indicators of a challenging editorial and business environment to come.

Gains at the nine listed news businesses analysed by Press Gazette were in most cases larger than the gains in the S&P 500 index which tracks the performance of the US stock market.

We have tried to select companies with a greater focus on news publishing, so this group misses some entities with large entertainment portfolios, for example CNN parent Warner Bros Discovery and CBS parent Paramount Global, although both those companies have also seen their prices rise this week.

Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corporation and Fox Corporation, which both boast right-leaning brands supportive of Trump, have both seen share price growth this week — but in both cases their prices grew less than those of liberal rivals.

Daily Beast and Dotdash Meredith parent IAC for example was among the biggest risers, seeing its price grow 10% between the ends of Monday and Thursday and 5.6% compared with a month earlier. (Like the rest of the market, share prices at most of the companies analysed here dipped in the immediate run-up to the election.)

The New York Times Company, too, saw its share price rise 6.4% versus Monday (when its price dropped following its third quarter earnings report) to $55.80.

The biggest "Trump trade" beneficiary in the short term was USA Today parent company and local publishing giant Gannett, which saw its share price jump 12% to $5.50 — however this followed a large drop in its price last week when it posted a loss of $19.7m in the third quarter. The company closed on Thursday trading at 0.7% less than its price a month earlier.

Fellow local newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises was the only corporation on the list to have lost value across the week of the election, although its share price appreciated significantly on Thursday and the losses come after its share price nearly doubled in October.

What's behind the share price rises at US news publishers?

The media price rises are odds with Trump's both historic and recent hostility toward the press.

Speaking at a rally two days before the election Trump declared: "To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news - and I don't mind that so much." Declaring victory on Wednesday, he similarly referred to publishers CNN and MSNBC as "the enemy camp" while describing running mate JD Vance's willingness to appear on those networks.

At the end of October Trump began a lawsuit against CBS News, claiming the broadcaster had edited a 60 Minutes interview with opponent Kamala Harris in order "to paper over Kamala's 'word salad' weakness". He has also spoken of a desire to strip broadcast licences from networks he felt were treating him unfairly.

Former Trump National Security Council advisor Kash Patel, who has been tipped for roles in the new administration, has previously insisted a new Trump government will prosecute journalists for helping Joe Biden "rig presidential elections".

The price rises may simply reflect broader investor belief that anticipated Trump tax cuts will benefit business performance across corporate America, including at news companies.

Several publishers saw significant subscription and revenue boosts during the first Trump administration, although experts have expressed scepticism over whether the phenomenon will be repeated.

Commenting on the share price boost at the NYT, Barron's associate editor Andrew Bary wrote this week: "The Trump win probably is good for all news media since he generates buzz and controversy that is good for viewership, subscriber growth, and engagement. Few things sell newspapers—or their current equivalent—better than Trump."

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Millions of stories published by sites including The New York Times and The New York Daily News have been found in three weeks of searching OpenAI’s training dataset.

The news publishers are currently trawling through data to find instances of their copyrighted work being used to train OpenAI’s models – but they say the tech company should be forced to provide the information itself.

They are now asking for a court order requiring OpenAI to “identify and admit” which of their copyrighted content was used to train each of its large language models between GPT-1 and GPT-4o.

According to the ChatGPT creator, which objected to the request, the publishers have asked for information about almost 20 million pieces of content mentioned in the case, “effectively resulting in almost 500 million requests”.

The publishers told the court on Friday that their requests to the AI company for help with inspecting the data “would be significantly reduced if OpenAI admitted that they trained their models on all, or the vast majority, of News Plaintiffs’ copyrighted content”.

A letter to the court also stated: “While they have already found millions of News Plaintiffs’ works in the training datasets, they do not know how many more works are yet to be uncovered – information that OpenAI, as the party that chose to copy these works, should be ordered to provide.”

The New York Times was the first major news publisher to file a copyright case against OpenAI and its partner Microsoft in December last year.

The New York Daily News and seven sister publications, all owned by Alden Global Capital, followed suit in April and the two cases have since been combined after OpenAI and Microsoft argued they “involve nearly identical allegations relating to the same new technology”.

In the new letter, the news publishers argued that identifying which of their copyrighted work was taken and used to train the GPT models is “foundational to these cases and informs the scope” of their claims.

“But News Plaintiffs and OpenAI have a fundamental disagreement about who is responsible for identifying this information.”

The publishers said they have served numerous requests since February for information about what’s in OpenAI’s training datasets, to which the tech company replied: “OpenAI will make available for inspection, pursuant to an inspection protocol to be negotiated between the parties, the pretraining data for models used for ChatGPT that it locates after a reasonable search.”

After long-running negotiations, since last month the news publishers have been inspecting OpenAI’s training data under strict conditions, previously described by the court as a “sandbox” (meaning a highly controlled environment in which only certain applications can be run).

But the news publishers said they initially faced “severe and repeated technical issues” stopping them from being able to “effectively and efficiently” carry out the search and “ascertain the full scope of OpenAI’s infringement”.

They complained that the process is “time-consuming, burdensome, and hugely expensive” and said they had spent the equivalent of 27 days via lawyers and experts in the OpenAI sandbox but were “nowhere near done”.

The New York Times Company results published on Monday revealed it has so far spent at least $7.6m on the case against OpenAI and Microsoft.

OpenAI: Training data searches are ‘uncharted waters’

OpenAI responded within the same letter that the publishers’ complaints about the inspection have either been resolved or are being actively discussed. It blamed the issues on consultants for the publishers “overwhelming the file system with malformed searches”.

OpenAI added: “Taking a step back, everyone agrees the parties are navigating uncharted waters with training-data discovery.

“There are no precedents for such discovery, where Plaintiffs seek access to several hundred terabytes of unstructured textual data. OpenAI cannot easily identify the specific content that Plaintiffs are interested in, so it did exactly what Rule 34 allows: it invited Plaintiffs to inspect the data as it is kept in the ordinary course. There is no ‘sandbox’. Rather, because the data is far too voluminous to produce, OpenAI built the hardware and software that Plaintiffs need to inspect.

“Specifically, OpenAI organised hundreds of terabytes of training data in an object-storage file system for Plaintiffs’ exclusive use; it built an enterprise-grade virtual machine with the computing power to access, search, and analyse the datasets; it installed hundreds of software tools and tens of gigabytes of Plaintiffs’ data upon their request; and it managed the necessary firewalls and secure virtual private network to support the inspection.”

OpenAI said it would continue to help the publishers overcome technical challenges provided they “engage in good faith” but added: “Unfortunately, this has not always been the case,” accusing them of delaying the process for months and submitting “hundreds of irrelevant requests”.

Representatives for the Authors Guild and progressive newsbrand Raw Story Media have also viewed the OpenAI training data for their own cases.

OpenAI previously asked a judge to force The New York Times to hand over its journalists’ confidential notes, a move the publisher warned would have “serious negative and far-reaching consequences” and was ultimately denied in September.

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The Athletic made a profit in the third quarter of 2024 for the first time since its launch, according to the latest financial results from parent publisher The New York Times Company.

NYT Co bought the loss-making sports news brand, which launched in 2016, for $550m in January 2022 and it has taken two-and-a-half years since then to get it into quarterly profit of $2.6m.

This is an improvement from a loss of $2.4m in Q2, of $8.7m in Q1, $4.4m in Q4 2023 and $7.9m in Q3 last year.

The publisher said the improvement was down to higher revenue in both subscriptions and advertising.

Revenue was up 30% year-on-year to $44.7m for the quarter, with subscriptions making up 70% of that total for The Athletic, advertising (which was up 7% to $9m due to growth in direct-sold display) comprising 10% and other revenue such as Apple licensing making up the rest.

On an investor call, New York Times president and chief executive Meredith Kopit Levien said The Athletic made progress on its “journey to become a household name among sports fans, with strong coverage of the Olympics and great momentum at the start of the NFL and English Premier League season.

“The Athletic is already an important component of our bundle offering and more deeply engaging subscribers,” she added, saying it has begun being tested as “more directly as a driver of bundle subscription starts”.

In Q3 the New York Times Company surpassed 11 million total subscribers for the first time, reaching 11.09 million with 260,000 net new digital subscribers, the company said.

The total subscribers include digital and print, and subscribers to single products as well as the bundle which includes The New York Times online, The Athletic, Cooking, Games and product review brand Wirecutter.

Some 46% of subscriptions (5.12 million) are bundles/multi-product and this was said to be on track to exceed 50% by the end of next year.

"That matters because bundle and multi-product subscribers have a higher expected lifetime value than subscribers to any individual product," Kopit Levien said.

She also said that "subscriber engagement, as measured by the share of subscribers visiting The Times each week, reached its highest point since 2020," leading to growth in average monthly revenue per user up from $9.28 a year ago to $9.45.

"And we once again grew direct relationships, even as the market continues to experience significant audience headwinds, driven by ships in the platform landscape," she added.

The New York Times Company overall grew adjusted operating profit by 16% to $104.2m compared to the same period last year, while revenue was up by 7% to $640.2m.

Subscription revenue increased 8% to $453.3m, with 71% of this coming from digital-only products. Advertising revenue was up 1% to $118.4m (with digital up 9% and print down 13%). Other revenue was up 9% to $68.5m primarily driven by increases in Wirecutter affiliate referral and licensing revenue.

The results also revealed the publisher spent $4.6m pre-tax on its copyright claim against Microsoft and OpenAI between July and September, up from $2m in Q2 and $1m in Q1.

The post New York Times-owned The Athletic reports quarterly profit for first time appeared first on Press Gazette.

News publishers are increasingly deciding to sign deals with AI companies over the use of their content despite early doubts and a high-profile legal case from The New York Times.

The deals commonly include the use of news publishers’ content as reference points for user queries in tools like ChatGPT (with citation back to their websites currently promised) as well as giving them the use of the AI tech to build their own products.

This page will be updated when new deals are struck or legal actions are launched relating to news publishers and AI companies (latest: Meta strikes an AI deal with Reuters while News Corp subsidiaries sue Perplexity).

OpenAI is reportedly offering news organisations between $1m and $5m per year to license their copyrighted content to train its models – although News Corp’s deal is reportedly worth more than $250m over five years.

Meanwhile Apple has reportedly been exploring AI deals with the likes of Conde Nast, NBC News and People and Daily Beast owner IAC to license their content archives, but nothing has yet been made public.

Scroll down or here are the quick links:

• Latest lawsuits: including eight Alden US dailies
• Latest deals: including Hearst, Conde Nast, The Atlantic, Vox Media, News Corp, Dotdash Meredith

Plenty of other news organisations are understood to be in negotiations with OpenAI while some, including the publisher of Mail Online, have suggested they are seriously considering their options legally.

But not all publishers want deals: Reach chief executive Jim Mullen told investors on 5 March that the UK’s largest commercial publisher is not in any “active discussions” with AI companies and suggested other publishers should hold off on deals to allow the industry to come at the issue with a position of solidarity.

He said: “We would prefer that we don’t get into a situation where we did with the referrers ten years ago and gave them access and we became hooked on this referral traffic and we would like it to be more structured. We produce content, which is really valuable, and we would like to license or agree how they use our base intelligence to actually inform the AI and the open markets. The challenge we have as an industry is that we need to be unified.

“I used to be the chairman of the NMA and if we stay together and work with it, then that’s a really strong position that we have, particularly with the Government to help us get to there. So I’m using this as a bit of a campaign, [it] only takes one publisher to break away and start doing deals and then it sort of disintegrates.”

Press Gazette analysis in February found that more than four in ten of the 100 biggest English-language news websites have decided not to block AI bots from the likes of OpenAI and Google.

If you feel there is something missing that should be included, or you want to alert us to a new development, please contact charlotte.tobitt@pressgazette.co.uk.

Suing

News Corp (versus Perplexity)

The News Corp subsidiaries that publish the Wall Street Journal and New York Post have filed a copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit against AI upstart Perplexity, which they accuse of “massive freeriding”.

The publisher is seeking massive damages and the removal of its content from Perplexity’s web index and wants its case heard at a jury trial.

News Corp has separately signed a deal with OpenAI (see below for more information). It is the first to sue Perplexity though other publishers including The New York Times have sent the AI company cease and desist letters.

Read the full story here.

Mumsnet

UK parenting forum and publisher Mumsnet has launched legal action via an initial letter against OpenAI over the scraping of its site and its more than six billion words – “presumably” for the training of large language model ChatGPT.

Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts told users: “Such scraping without permission is an explicit breach of our terms of use, which clearly state that no part of the site may be distributed, scraped or copied for any purpose without our express approval. So we approached Open AI and suggested they might like to licence our content.”

In particular, she said, Mumsnet’s content would be valuable because it could help to counter the misogyny “baked in” to many AI models.

But, she continued: “Their response was that they were more interested in datasets that are not easily accessible online.”

Roberts said what OpenAI differs from Google’s scraping of the web for search purposes because there is a “clear value exchange in allowing Google to access that data, namely the resulting search traffic… The LLMs are building models like ChatGPT to provide the answers to any and all prospective questions that will mean we’ll no longer need to go elsewhere for solutions. And they’re building those models with scraped content from the websites they are poised to replace.”

Roberts continued: “At Mumsnet we’re in a stronger position than most because much of our traffic comes to us direct and though it’s a piece of cake for an LLM to spit out a Mumsnet-style answer to a parenting question I doubt they’ll ever be as funny about parking wars or as honest about relationships and they’ll certainly never provide the emotional support that sees around a thousand women a year helped to leave abusive partners by other Mumsnet users.

“But if these trillion-dollar giants are simply allowed to pillage content from online publishers – and get away with it – they will destroy many of them.”

Roberts acknowledged it is “not an easy task” to go up against a big tech company like OpenAI but said “this is too important an issue to simply roll over”.

Responses from users on the forum contained a lot of “well done” and “good luck”.

The Center for Investigative Reporting

Non-profit news organisation The Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Mother Jones (after a merger this year) and Reveal, is suing OpenAI and its largest shareholder Microsoft, it announced on 28 June.

It said the companies had used its content “without permission or offering compensation” and accused them of “exploitative practices” in a lawsuit filed in New York.

Chief executive Monika Bauerlein said: “OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material.

“This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it.”

She added: “For-profit corporations like OpenAI and Microsoft can’t simply treat the work of nonprofit and independent publishers as free raw material for their products.

“If this practice isn’t stopped, the public’s access to truthful information will be limited to AI-generated summaries of a disappearing news landscape.”

Eight Alden Global Capital daily newspapers

Eight daily newspapers in the US owned by Alden Global Capital are suing OpenAI and Microsoft, it was revealed on 30 April.

The newspapers involved in the lawsuit are: the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, the Sun-Sentinel in Florida, the Mercury News in San Jose, the Denver Post, the Orange County Register and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The lawsuit says the newspapers want recognition that they have a legal right over their content and compensation for the use of it in the training of AI tools so far.

Frank Pine, executive editor of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing Newspapers, the Alden subsidiaries that own the newspapers concerned, said: “We’ve spent billions of dollars gathering information and reporting news at our publications, and we can’t allow OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the Big Tech playbook of stealing our work to build their own businesses at our expense.

“They pay their engineers and programmers, they pay for servers and processors, they pay for electricity, and they definitely get paid from their astronomical valuations, but they don’t want to pay for the content without which they would have no product at all. That’s not fair use, and it’s not fair. It needs to stop.

“The misappropriation of news content by OpenAI and Microsoft undermines the business model for news. These companies are building AI products clearly intended to supplant news publishers by repurposing purloined content and delivering it to their users.

“Even worse, when they’re not delivering the actual verbatim reporting of our hard-working journalists, they misattribute bogus information to our news publications, damaging our credibility. We employ professional journalists who adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and fairness. They are real people who go out into the world to conduct first-hand interviews and engage in actual investigations to produce our journalism.

“Their work is vetted and checked by professional editors. The Mercury News has never recommended injecting disinfectants to treat COVID, and the Denver Post did not publish research that shows smoking cures asthma. These and other ChatGPT hallucinations are documented in our legal filings.”

The Intercept, Raw Story and Alter Net

Three US progressive news and politics digital outlets filed lawsuits against OpenAI on Wednesday 28 February.

The Intercept, Raw Story and Alter Net objected to the use of their articles to train ChatGPT. The Intercept also sued Microsoft, which has partnered with OpenAI to create a Bing chatbot.

Raw Story publisher Roxanne Cooper said: “Raw Story’s copyright-protected journalism is the result of significant efforts of human journalists who report the news. Rather than license that work, OpenAI taught ChatGPT to ignore journalists’ copyrights and hide its use of copyright-protected material.”

CEO and founder John Byrne added: “It is time that news organisations fight back against Big Tech’s continued attempts to monetise other people’s work.”

The New York Times

The most high-profile case against OpenAI and Microsoft from a news publisher so far, The New York Times made a surprise announcement in the days after Christmas that it would seek damages, restitution and costs as well as the destruction of all large language models (LLMs) trained on its content.

OpenAI and NYT had been in negotiations for nine months but the news organisation felt no resolution was forthcoming and decided instead to share its concerns over the use of its intellectual property publicly. The success of the lawsuit will depend on the US court’s interpretation of “fair use” in copyright law – assuming the companies don’t find their way to a settlement first.

OpenAI previously said a “high-value partnership around real-time display with attribution in ChatGPT” was on the cards with the NYT before the news organisation surprised it by launching the lawsuit.

The NYT said the two tech companies, which have a partnership centred around ChatGPT and Bing, have “reaped substantial savings by taking and using – at no cost” its content to create their models without paying for a licence. It added that the use of its content in chatbots “threatens to divert readers, including current and potential subscribers, away from The Times, thereby reducing the subscription, advertising, licensing, and affiliate revenues that fund The Times’s ability to continue producing its current level of groundbreaking journalism”.

In its response, filed on Monday 26 February, OpenAI argued: “In the real world, people do not use ChatGPT or any other OpenAI product” to substitute for a NYT subscription. “Nor could they. In the ordinary course, one cannot use ChatGPT to serve up Times articles at will.”

OpenAI accused the NYT of paying someone to hack its products and taking “tens of thousands of attempts to generate the highly anomalous results” in which verbatim paragraphs from articles were spat out by ChatGPT. “They were able to do so only by targeting and exploiting a bug (which OpenAI has committed to addressing) by using deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI’s terms of use,” it said.

“And even then, they had to feed the tool portions of the very articles they sought to elicit verbatim passages of, virtually all of which already appear on multiple public websites. Normal people do not use OpenAI’s products in this way.”

Getty Images

Getty Images began legal proceedings against Stability AI in the UK in January 2023, claiming that the AI image company “unlawfully copied and processed” millions of its copyrighted images without a licence through its text-to-image model Stable Diffusion.

In December, the High Court in London ruled that Getty’s case could go to trial after Stability AI failed to persuade a judge that two aspects of the claim – relating to training and development as well as copyright – should be struck out.

Mrs Justice Joanna Smith said Getty’s claim has a “real prospect of success” in relation to Stable Diffusion’s “image-to-image feature” which the photo agency claimed allows users to make “essentially identical copies of copyright works”.

Who’s signed news AI deals?

Reuters

Reuters, which has previously said it had struck a number of deals with unspecified AI companies and then signed up as a publisher partner for Microsoft’s new AI companion Copilot, has become the first news publisher to sign an AI deal with Meta.

The deal allows Meta’s AI chatbot to use real-time Reuters content to answer questions from users about news and current events, it announced on 25 October, although it will begin only in the US.

The chatbot, which appears with the search and messaging features on Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Messenger, will provide summaries and link out to Reuters which will be compensated when its work is used in this way.

Reuters already had a fact-checking partnership with the Facebook owner.

A Reuters spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Reuters has partnered with tech providers to license our trusted, fact-based news content to power their AI platforms. The terms of these deals remain confidential.”

A Meta spokesperson told Axios: “We’re always iterating and working to improve our products, and through Meta’s partnership with Reuters, Meta AI can respond to news-related questions with summaries and links to Reuters content.

“While most people use Meta AI for creative tasks, deep dives on new topics or how-to assistance, this partnership will help ensure a more useful experience for those seeking information on current events.”

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism

OpenAI and Microsoft are distributing $10m to The Lenfest Institute for Journalism to provide five US newsrooms with a grant to each hire a fellow to work on AI projects for two years.

The newsrooms benefiting from the initial round of funding are: Chicago Public Media, Newsday in Long Island, The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Seattle Times. Three further news organisations will receive funding in a second round.

The projects from the fellows should “focus largely on improving business sustainability and implementing AI technologies within their organisations”, Lenfest said.

OpenAI and Microsoft will also allow the publications to use their tools to experiment and develop tools to help with their local news output.

Tom Rubin, chief of intellectual property and content at OpenAI, said: “While nothing will replace the central role of reporters, we believe that AI technology can help in the research, investigation, distribution, and monetisation of important journalism.

“We’re deeply invested in supporting smaller, independent publishers through initiatives like The Lenfest Institute AI Collaborative and Fellowship, ensuring they have access to the same cutting-edge tools and opportunities as larger organizations.”

Hearst

Newspaper and magazine giant Hearst has agreed a “content partnership” with OpenAI in the US, it announced on 8 October.

Hearst said OpenAI products including ChatGPT will incorporate content from its US brands including Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Runner’s World and Women’s Health – more than 20 magazine titles and 40 newspapers in total. It does not include Hearst’s content in other countries like the UK.

Hearst said its content will “feature appropriate citations and direct links, providing transparency and easy access to the original Hearst sources” from ChatGPT.

Hearst Newspapers president Jeff Johnson said: “As generative AI matures, it’s critical that journalism created by professional journalists be at the heart of all AI products.

“This agreement allows the trustworthy and curated content created by Hearst Newspapers’ award-winning journalists to be part of OpenAI’s products like ChatGPT — creating more timely and relevant results.”

Hearst Magazines president Debi Chirichella added: “Our partnership with OpenAI will help us evolve the future of magazine content. This collaboration ensures that our high-quality writing and expertise, cultural and historical context and attribution and credibility are promoted as OpenAI’s products evolve.”

And OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the use of Hearst content “elevates our ability to provide engaging, reliable information to our users”.

FT, Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Mags, USA Today Network

The FT, Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Mags and USA Today Network were named as publisher partners for Microsoft’s new AI “companion”, Copilot, at the start of October.

Those announced were existing partners of Microsoft’s MSN news licensing service but Press Gazette understands these are new deals.

Microsoft said Copilot Daily can give a summary of the news and weather using an AI Copilot Voice.

“It’s an antidote for that familiar feeling of information overload. Clean, simple and easy to digest. Copilot Daily will only pull from authorised content sources. We are working with partners such as Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Magazines, USA Today Network and Financial Times, and plan to add more sources over time. We’ll also add additional personalisation and controls in Copilot Daily over time.”

Conde Nast

Vogue, Wired, Vanity Fair and GQ publisher Conde Nast has become the latest publisher to sign a “multi-year partnership” relating to the display of its content in OpenAI products, it announced on 20 August.

Conde Nast chief executive Roger Lynch has been outspoken about the risks generative AI poses to news businesses, telling US Congress “many” media companies could go out of business by the time any litigation passes through the courts and that “immediate action” should be taken through a clarification that content creators should be compensated for the use of their work in training.

In a memo to staff he has now said the OpenAI deal helps to make up for revenue being lost through declining search traffic.

He wrote: “It’s crucial that we meet audiences where they are and embrace new technologies while also ensuring proper attribution and compensation for use of our intellectual property. This is exactly what we have found with OpenAI.

“Over the last decade, news and digital media have faced steep challenges as many technology companies eroded publishers’ ability to monetize content, most recently with traditional search. Our partnership with OpenAI begins to make up for some of that revenue, allowing us to continue to protect and invest in our journalism and creative endeavours.”

The deal will allow OpenAI to display content from Conde Nast brands in its products, including ChatGPT and its SearchGPT AI-driven search engine prototype.

OpenAI explained what this means in a blog post: “With the introduction of our SearchGPT prototype, we’re testing new search features that make finding information and reliable content sources faster and more intuitive. We’re combining our conversational models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources. SearchGPT offers direct links to news stories, enabling users to easily explore more in-depth content directly from the source.

“We plan to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future.

“We’re collaborating with our news partners to collect feedback and insights on the design and performance of SearchGPT, ensuring that these integrations enhance user experiences and inform future updates to ChatGPT.”

Lynch praised OpenAI for being “transparent and willing to productively work with publishers like us so that the public can receive reliable information and news through their platforms”.

He continued: “This partnership recognises that the exceptional content produced by Condé Nast and our many titles cannot be replaced, and is a step toward making sure our technology-enabled future is one that is created responsibly.

“It is just the beginning and we will continue what we started in Washington earlier this year – the fight for fair deals and partnerships across the industry until all entities developing and deploying artificial intelligence take seriously, as OpenAI has, the rights of publishers.”

Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic, Fortune

Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic and Fortune (as well as Universal Music Group) have agreed to license their content to generative AI start-up Prorata.ai.

Prorata says it has a proprietary algorithm that can work out how much of various publishers’ content is used in an answer and share revenue accordingly. When it launches its own chatbot this autumn, it says, it will share 50% of the revenue from subscriptions with content creators.

Read our full story about Prorata’s plan here.

Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune and WordPress owner Automattic

Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune and WordPress.com owner Automattic have become the first publishers to sign up to a revenue-sharing deal launched by AI search chatbot Perplexity.

When Perplexity introduces advertising via sponsored related questions within the next few months, signed-up publishers will be able to share the revenue generated by interactions where their content is referenced.

The programme also gives them access to analytics platform Scalepost.ai to see which of their articles show up frequently in Perplexity answers that get monetised, access to Perplexity tech to create their own custom answer engines for their websites, and one year of Perplexity Enterprise Pro for all employees for a year.

Read our full story about the revenue-sharing programme, and Perplexity’s view on its relationship with publishers, here.

Time

Time has signed a “multi-year content deal and strategic partnership” with OpenAI, it revealed on 27 June.

The deal will give the ChatGPT creator access to Time’s 101-year-old archive and its current reporting to give up-to-date answers to users (with a citation and a link back to the website).

Time will also have access to OpenAI tech to build its own products and provide feedback to the tech company on the delivery of journalism through its tools.

Time chief operating officer Mark Howard said: “Throughout our 101-year history, Time has embraced innovation to ensure that the delivery of our trusted journalism evolves alongside technology. This partnership with OpenAI advances our mission to expand access to trusted information globally as we continue to embrace innovative new ways of bringing Time’s journalism to audiences globally.”

OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the deal supports “reputable journalism by providing proper attribution to original sources.”

Vox Media

Vox Media has signed a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAI that means content – including archive journalism – from its brands including Vox, The Verge, Eater, New York Magazine, The Cut, Vulture and SB Nation will be surfaced on ChatGPT and also that it can use OpenAI’s tech to develop audience-facing and internal products.

The publisher said it will use OpenAI tech to create stronger creative optimisation and audience segment targeting on its first-party data platform Forte, which is used across all Vox Media sites and on its ad marketplace Concert.

It will also use OpenAI tools to match people with the right products on its search-based affiliate commerce tool The Strategist Gift Scout.

Vox Media co-founder, chair and chief executive Jim Bankoff said: “This agreement aligns with our goals of leveraging generative AI to innovate for our audiences and customers, protect and grow the value of our work and intellectual property, and boost productivity and discoverability to elevate the talent and creativity of our exceptional journalists and creators.”

The Atlantic

The Atlantic also announced on 29 May it has signed a “strategic content and product partnership” with OpenAI meaning its articles will be discoverable within ChatGPT and the AI giant’s other products, with these results providing attribution and links to its website.

The partnership also means The Atlantic “will help to shape how news is surfaced and presented in future real-time discovery products”.

The companies are also collaborating on product and tech, with The Atlantic’s product team given “privileged access” to OpenAI tech to give feedback and help shape the future of news in ChatGPT and other OpenAI products.

The Atlantic said it is currently developing an experimental microsite called Atlantic Labs “to figure out how AI can help in the development of new products and features to better serve its journalism and readers”. It will pilot OpenAI’s and other emerging tech in this work.

Nicholas Thompson, chief executive of The Atlantic, said: “We believe that people searching with AI models will be one of the fundamental ways that people navigate the web in the future.”

He added that the partnership will mean The Atlantic’s reporting is “more discoverable” to OpenAI’s millions of users and give the publisher “a voice in shaping how news is surfaced on their platforms”.

OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said: “Enabling access to The Atlantic’s reporting in our products will allow users to more deeply interact with thought-provoking news. We are dedicated to supporting high-quality journalism and the publishing ecosystem.”

[Read more: What’s next for The Atlantic after reaching profitability and 1m subscribers]

WAN-IFRA

The World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has announced a partnership with OpenAI for a programme, Newsroom AI Catalyst, designed to “help newsrooms fast-track their AI adoption and implementation to bring efficiencies and create quality content”.

The project will work with 128 newsrooms in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and South Asia providing expert guidance with funding and technical assistance from OpenAI.

Each team will receive three months of learning modules, hands-on workshops, a mini hackathon, and a showcase. They will go back to their newsrooms with a clear plan on how to roll out AI.

Vincent Peyregne, chief executive of WAN-IFRA, said: “News enterprises across the globe have come under pressure from declining advertising and print subscription revenues. The adversity confronting news leaves communities without access to a shared basis of facts and shared values and puts democracy itself at risk.

“AI technologies can positively influence news organisations’ sustainability as long as you quickly grasp the stakes and understand how to turn it to your advantage.”

He added that OpenAI’s support will “help the newsrooms through the adoption of AI technologies to provide high-quality journalism that is the cornerstone of the news business”.

OpenAI’s chief of intellectual property and content Tom Rubin said the programme is “designed to turbocharge the capabilities of 128 newsrooms” and he wants to help “cultivate a healthy, sustainable ecosystem that promotes quality journalism”.

News Corp

News Corp has signed a deal that includes the use of content from many of its major newsbrands in the UK, US and Australia in OpenAI’s large language models, it was announced on 22 May.

The partnership covers content from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Investor’s Business Daily, FN, and the New York Post in the US; The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun in the UK; and The Australian, news.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Advertiser, and the Herald Sun in Australia.

The Wall Street Journal put a value on the deal of more than $250m over five years.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson described OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his team as “principled partners… who understand the commercial and social significance of journalists and journalism.

“This landmark accord is not an end, but the beginning of a beautiful friendship in which we are jointly committed to creating and delivering insight and integrity instantaneously.”

Dotdash Meredith

Dotdash Meredith, which publishes more than 40 titles including People, Instyle and Investopedia, on 7 May signed a multi-year deal with OpenAI that will see its content and links surfaced in ChatGPT responses.

OpenAI will incorporate real-time information from Dotdash sites into ChatGPT’s responses to queries and will use the publisher’s content to train its large language models. Dotdash meanwhile will receive assistance from OpenAI in developing both consumer-facing AI products and its AI-powered contextual advertising tool, D/Cipher.

B2B giant Informa

Business information giant Informa announced a non-exclusive Partnership and Data Access Agreement with Microsoft (the main backer of OpenAI) in a trading update on 8 May. There has been an initial fee of $10m+ and then three more recurring annual payments.

Informa said the deal covers:

“Improved Productivity: Explore how AI can enable more effective ways of working at Informa, streamlining operations, utilising Copilot for Microsoft 365 to enable Colleagues to work more efficiently, and enhancing the capabilities of Informa’s existing AI and data platforms (IIRIS);

“Citation Engine: Collaborate to further develop automated citation referencing, using the latest technology to improve speed and accuracy;

“Specialist Expert Agent: Explore the development of specialised expert agents for customers such as authors and librarians to assist with research, understanding and new knowledge creation/sharing;

“Data Access: Provide non-exclusive access to Advanced Learning content and data to help improve relevance and performance of AI systems.”

Informa said the deal “protects intellectual property rights, including limits on verbatim text extracts and alignment on the importance of detailed citation references”.

Axel Springer (again)

Following its deal with OpenAI (see below) Axel Springer has announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft covering AI, advertising, content and cloud computing.

On AI, they will partner to develop new AI-driven chat experiences to inform users using Axel Springer’s journalism.

They added: “In addition, Axel Springer will leverage Microsoft Advertising’s Chat Ads API for generative AI monetisation.”

Their existing adtech collaboration will be expanded from Europe into the US to encompass Politico, while users of Microsoft’s aggregator Start-MSN will have access to more premium content from Axel Springer’s brands. Finally the publisher will migrate its SAP solutions to Microsoft Azure.

Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Dopfner said: “In this new era of AI, partnerships are critical to preserving and promoting independent journalism while ensuring a thriving media landscape.

“We’re optimistic about the future of journalism and the opportunities we can unlock through this expanded partnership with Microsoft.”

Microsoft chairman and chief executive Satya Nadella added: “Our expanded partnership with Axel Springer brings together their leadership in digital publishing with the full power of the Microsoft Cloud — including our ad solutions — to build innovative AI-driven experiences and create new opportunity for advertisers and users.”

Financial Times

On 29 April the Financial Times became the first major UK newsbrand to announce a deal with OpenAI.

The partnership involves up-to-date news content and journalism from the FT archive, meaning it is likely to assist with both real-time queries on ChatGPT and its continued training.

FT Group chief executive John Ridding said: “This is an important agreement in a number of respects.

“It recognises the value of our award-winning journalism and will give us early insights into how content is surfaced through AI… Apart from the benefits to the FT, there are broader implications for the industry. It’s right, of course, that AI platforms pay publishers for the use of their material.”

Le Monde and Prisa Media

OpenAI announced on 13 March it had signed deals with French newsbrand Le Monde and Spanish publisher Prisa Media, which publishes El País, Cinco Días, As and El Huffpost.

The deals will mean ChatGPT users can surface recent content from both publishers through “select summaries with attribution and enhanced links to the original articles”, while their content will be allowed to contribute to training OpenAI’s models.

Le Monde chief executive Louis Dreyfus said: “At the moment we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of Le Monde, this partnership with OpenAI allows us to expand our reach and uphold our commitment to providing accurate, verified, balanced news stories at scale.

“Collaborating with OpenAI ensures that our authoritative content can be accessed and appreciated by a broader, more diverse audience… Our partnership with OpenAI is a strategic move to ensure the dissemination of reliable information to AI users, safeguarding our journalistic integrity and revenue streams in the process.”

Carlos Nuñez, chairman and chief executive of Prisa Media added: “Joining forces with OpenAI opens new avenues for us to engage with our audience. Leveraging ChatGPT’s capabilities allows us to present our in-depth, quality journalism in novel ways, reaching individuals who seek credible and independent content.

“This is a definite step towards the future of news, where technology and human expertise merge to enrich the reader’s experience.”

Reuters

Thomson Reuters chief executive Steve Hasker told the Financial Times that the company had struck “a number” of deals with AI companies looking to use Reuters news content to train their models but he did not give any further details about who was involved in the deals or for how much.

He did say that “there appears to be a market price evolving”, adding: “These models need to be fed. And they may as well be fed by the highest-quality, independent fact-based content. We have done a number of those deals, and we’re exploring the potential there.”

However away from the Reuters news part of the business Thomson Reuters is suing Ross Intelligence for allegedly unlawfully copying content from its legal research platform Westlaw to train a rival AI-powered intelligence platform.

Unknown independent publishers

A handful of unnamed independent publishers are taking part in a private programme with Google, according to Adweek, which will see them paid a five-figure annual sum to take part in a trial of a new AI platform.

The publishers are reportedly expected to produce a certain number of stories for a year and provide analytics and feedback in exchange.

Reddit

Social media platform Reddit has signed a deal allowing its content to be used by Google in the training of its AI tools. Reuters reported that the deal is worth around $60m per year.

Although not a news organisation, the Reddit deal is still a content licensing deal. There is also likely to be news media content copied within Reddit posts from users on the platform which could therefore fall within the remit of the deal.

Semafor (sort of)

Ben Smith and Justin B Smith’s start-up Semafor has secured “substantial” Microsoft sponsorship for an AI-driven news feed, although this was not built by the tech giant but by the newsroom itself.

The deal, announced in February, will see Microsoft help Semafor refine the tool and makes the digital outlet one of the first newsrooms to heavily involve ChatGPT in their workflow.

Although not a content deal as such, the agreement indicates a level of co-operation rather than acrimony.

Axel Springer

In December Politico, Business Insider, Bild and Welt owner Axel Springer agreed a partnership with OpenAI that would see its content summarised within ChatGPT around the world, including otherwise paywalled content, with links and attribution. Axel Springer’s content is permitted to be used to train OpenAI products going forward.

Axel Springer can also use OpenAI technology to continue building its own AI products.

Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner said: “We are excited to have shaped this global partnership between Axel Springer and OpenAI – the first of its kind. We want to explore the opportunities of AI empowered journalism – to bring quality, societal relevance and the business model of journalism to the next level.”

American Journalism Project

In July 2023 OpenAI committed $5m to the American Journalism Project, a philanthropic organisation working to support and rebuild local news organisations, to support the expansion of its work. It also pledged up to $5m in OpenAI API credits to help participating organisations try out emerging AI technologies.

American Journalism Project chief executive Sarabeth Berman said: “To ensure local journalism remains an essential pillar of our democracy, we need to be smart about the potential powers and pitfalls of new technology. In these early days of generative AI, we have the opportunity to ensure that local news organisations, and their communities, are involved in shaping its implications. With this partnership, we aim to promote ways for AI to enhance—rather than imperil—journalism.”

Associated Press

OpenAI and Associated Press signed a deal in July 2023 that allows the AI company to license the news agency’s content archive going back to 1985 for training purposes.

The companies said they are also looking at “potential use cases for generative AI in news products and services” but did not share specifics.

Kristin Heitmann, AP senior vice president and chief revenue officer, said: “We are pleased that OpenAI recognises that fact-based, nonpartisan news content is essential to this evolving technology, and that they respect the value of our intellectual property. AP firmly supports a framework that will ensure intellectual property is protected and content creators are fairly compensated for their work.”

One professor told AP the deal could be particularly beneficial to OpenAI because it would mean they can still use a wealth of trusted content even if they lose other lawsuits and are forced to delete training data as a result, from The New York Times for example.

Shutterstock

In July 2023 Shutterstock expanded its partnership with OpenAI with a six-year agreement allowing access to a wealth of training data including images, videos, music and associated metadata.

For its part, Shutterstock gets “priority access” to new OpenAI technology and can offer DALL-E’s text-to-image capabilities directly within its platform.

The post Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies appeared first on Press Gazette.

Half of the world’s top 50 most-visited English-language news sites grew their traffic year-on-year in September – but all but two saw visits decline month-on-month.

• Top 50 most popular news websites in the UK (monthly ranking)
• Top 50 most popular news websites in the US (monthly ranking)

The only sites to grow their web traffic month-on-month were CBS News (102.3 million visits, up 18% month-on-month) and India.com (140.54 million, up 42%).

The latter, which was also the fourth-fastest growing site on the top 50 year-on-year, continues a trend of healthy growth at Indian news sites in recent months.

As well as the growth at CBS News, the sites with the shallowest month-on-month declines in September included US hard news staples NBC News (106.6 million visits, down 2.4% month-on-month), The New York Times (517.3 million, down 3.6%) and CNN (571.2 million, down 5.9%), possibly reflecting the approach of the US presidential election in November.

Last month English language news sites outside India saw a sharp pull-back coming out of an eventful July that saw the opening of the Paris Olympics, Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race and an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Indian sites generally fared well, however, increasing traffic compared with July or remaining largely stable.

This month India.com, OneIndia.com and IndianExpress.com were among the ten sites with the most growth (or the least shrinkage) month-on-month, but several Indian sites were also the fastest droppers, including The Hindu newspaper (72.2 million, down 17.6% month-on-month), LiveMint.com (69.1 million, down 17%) and NDTV (102.6 million, down 25.8%).

Canadian broadcaster CBC saw the biggest month-on-month decline in the top 50 (60.3 million visits in September, down 37.9% on August), and UK newspapers The Sun (60.2 million, down 23.3%), The Telegraph (109.1 million, down 19.8%), the Daily Express (59.4 million, down 16.2%) and the Daily Mirror (59.5 million, also down 16.2%) were all among the biggest fallers.

This picture was repeated year-on-year, with the Mirror (down 34.9% year-on-year), The Sun (down 23.2%) and Daily Mail (279 million visits, down 20.2%) among the top ten largest fallers compared with September 2023. They were, again, joined by Indian news sites Live Mint (down 26.8% year-on-year), India Today (down 26.8%), The Hindu (down 20%), NDTV (down 17.2%) and Rediff (61 million visits, down 14.2% year-on-year) also in the top ten.

Meanwhile Newsweek (109 million visits, up 108.3%) was once again the fastest year-on-year grower, followed by CBS, fellow US news site ABC News (69.4 million, up 51.8% year-on-year) and India.com.

Approximately a third of sites in the top 50 saw double-digit growth compared with September 2023.

Among the ten most visited English-language news sites in the world no site grew its web visits month-on-month. The New York Times, CNN, MSN (601.2 million visits, down 6.1% month-on-month) and Google News (329.2 million, down 6.3%) saw the shallowest declines while the deepest occurred at The Guardian (303.8 million, down 11.7%), the Daily Mail and Yahoo Finance (213.7 million, down 11.1%).

Year-on-year, meanwhile, as many top-ten sites grew their traffic as shrank. The New York Times grew the most compared with last September, with visits rising 14%, followed by CNN (10%), MSN (5%) and Fox News (288.5 million visits, up 2.8% on last year).

The Mail saw the fastest drop, shedding 20% of its traffic, followed by the BBC's sites (986 million, down 10.6%), despite which they remained the most-visited English-language news sites in the world. The Guardian also shrank year-on-year (down 4%), meaning all the British top ten sites lost traffic year-on-year.

Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the world's top 50 websites for news:

August 2024

Most of the world’s most-visited English-language news sites grew traffic year-on-year in August, despite month-on-month traffic declines.

American and British news sites saw the sharpest month-on-month contractions coming out of a busy July that saw the opening of the Paris Olympics, Joe Biden dropping out of the presidential race and an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Indian news sites, on the other hand, were among the most resilient of the top 50 newsbrands in August. Five of the 12 sites that grew their traffic were Indian, and a further two Indian brands kept visits steady compared with July.

Year-on-year, the fastest-growing site in August was again Newsweek (up 141% to 134.9 million visits), which has registered as either the fastest or second-fastest growing brand year-on-year every month since December 2023.

Newsweek was followed by ABC News (78.1 million visits, up 71% year-on-year), People (205.2 million, up 53%) and newsletter platform Substack (82.9 million, up 45%).

Here too Indian websites are well-represented, with Indiatimes (194.2 million, up 41% year-on-year) and DNAIndia.com, (72.1 million, up 38%), also known as Daily News and Analysis, ranking as the sixth and eighth-fastest growing top 50 news sites respectively.

Among the ten most-visited English language news sites the picture is mixed, with another Indian site, CNN partner News18.com (254 million visits) growing traffic 11% year-on-year to enter the top ten for the first time in ninth place. The next fastest-growing among the top ten was The New York Times (536.4 million, up 9%) and msn.com (640.4 million, up 3%).

The fastest decliner among the top ten was Mail Online, which saw visits drop 18% year-on-year to 314.8 million.

The Mail saw the third-largest drop year-on-year among the whole top 50. The second largest, despite the success of other Indian sites, was IndiaToday.in (99.6 million visits, down 22%) and fellow British tabloid Mirror.co.uk (71 million, down 35%).

Month-on-month DNAIndia was the fastest grower, seeing visits rise 49% compared with August. It was followed by India.com (99 million, up 29%) and Canada's CBC (97.1 million, up 31%).

Relatively few sites saw rapid month-on-month growth in August, however, with five of the top 50 registering double-digit traffic increases.

Most of the biggest fallers were big names in breaking news who saw traffic correct after the bumper July. NBC News shed the most visitors month-on-month, dropping 28% to 109.2 million. It was followed by ABC News which - despite seeing the second-greatest growth year-on-year - lost 17% of its visitors compared with July.

Among the ten largest English-language sites globally there was little growth month-on-month, with Yahoo Finance (240.5 million) growing visits 2% and News18 growing them 0.2%. The rest of the top ten saw traffic contractions, led by CNN (607.2 million, down 14% month-on-month), Fox News (324.5 million, down 12% month-on-month) and Mail Online (down 8% month-on-month).

July 2024

Most of the world’s biggest news website saw strong growth in July in what was a bumper month for news.

July saw an assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Joe Biden announcing he would not stand for re-election as US president and the start of the Paris Olympics (see in-depth coverage of Olympics news web traffic here).

The fastest-growing English language news websites in the world were mainly based in the US with Newsweek, ABC News and AP News all up more than 100% year on year. All of the fastest-growing sites in our top 50 were US-based with the exception of India-based NDTV.com.

Seven out of the top ten English language news websites in the world grew year on year, with CNN and Fox News both up more than 20%.

The biggest news website in the world remains the BBC with 1.2 billion visits per month (although it should be noted this includes the entire BBC website domain, not just the news section).

Month on month ABC News in the US was the fastest-growing global top-50 news website, up 79%, with UK-based Sky News the third fastest-growing site globally up 47%.

May 2024

Note: Figures from May 2024 and earlier were calculated using an old Similarweb data model that has since been updated.

The BBC was the fastest-growing of the ten biggest news websites in the world in May, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the website of the UK’s flagship broadcaster were up 9% in May compared to April to 1.1 billion. While Similarweb data includes traffic to the BBC’s entertainment and other content too, the site has a major news offering.

It was followed by Fox News (292 million, up 8%), New York Times (685.5 million, up 4%) and Google News (383.2 million, up 3%), according to digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

None of the top ten sites saw smaller audiences in May compared to April, although the audiences to the Daily Mail (364.9 million) and India Times (287.9 million) were largely unchanged from last month.

Year-on-year, among the top ten news sites by number of visits India Times was again the fastest-growing site (up 67% compared to May 2023). It was followed by the New York Times (up 19%), Yahoo Finance (248.2 million, up 10%), The Guardian (368.2 million, up 5%) and the BBC (up 4%).

Among the wider top 50, AP saw the biggest growth with visits to the newswire’s site up 20% month-on-month to 115 million. British newsbrands Sky News (77.2 million visits, up 14% month-on-month) and the Express (92.6 million, up 11%) also made the fastest-growing list.

Year-on-year Newsweek was the fastest-growing top 50 site in a list largely dominated by Indian newsbrands. Visits to newsweek.com were up 170% compared to last May to 107.4 million. Al Jazeera (63.9 million, up 55%), AP News (up 48%) and People (205.2 million, up 39%) also made the list.

The BBC was again top of the table for visits. It was followed by MSN (686 million), New York Times, CNN and Google News. The order of the top five is unchanged from last month. The Guardian in sixth place was the best-ranked UK newsbrand after the BBC.

April 2024

India Times was the biggest-growing news website in the world in April, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the website of digital giant were up 87% year-on-year to 287.6 million as the world’s most populous country undertakes elections. It was followed by Yahoo Finance (243.9 million, up 20%), The New York Times (657 million, up 15%) and The Guardian (366.5 million, up 10%).

The remainder of the top ten newsbrands in contrast did not see traffic grow year-on-year. Fox News slumped furthest with traffic falling to 269.3 million, down 14% in April, while BBC saw a smaller fall of 5% year-on-year to 1 billion visits, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Month-on-month, among the top ten news sites by number of visits the picture was more positive with six seeing more traffic in April than in March. Top of the list was again India Times (up 8% month-on-month), followed by The Guardian (up 5%), CNN (558.2 million visits, up 3%) and the BBC (up 2%). Traffic for the remainder of the top ten was static, increasing or decreasing by less than 1% compared to March.

Among the wider top 50, five of the fastest-growing new sites year-on-year were from India with financial news site Livemint seeing the largest surge in visits compared to April 2023 (up 139% to 83.7 million). Newsweek maintained its strong growth and was the second-fastest growing, close behind Livemint with visits up 132% to 103.4 million. This echoes teh US news magazine’s strong performance in our US top 50 ranking as well.

Al Jazeera meanwhile also saw a strong month with visits up 67% year-on-year to 70.8 million. Continued interest in the war in Gaza likely lies behind the Qatari newsbrand’s strong performance in April.

Among the top 50 many of the same names that performed well year-on-year also did well in terms of month-on-month growth in visits. Indian Express led the list with visits up 36% to 156.8 million compared to March, while Al Jazeera (up 28%) and CBS News (95.4 million visits, up 24%) also saw a strong April.

The BBC was again top of the table for visits. Its monthly growth meant that it crossed the 1 billion visit threshold in April below which it had remained for the previous two months. It was followed by MSN (678.8 million), New York Times, CNN and Google News (370.9 million). The order of the top five is unchanged from last month. The Guardian fell just short of the top five in sixth place. It was the best-ranked UK newsbrand after the BBC.

March 2024

Newsweek was the biggest-growing news website in the world in March, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

The news magazine saw visits to its website more than double in March, up 128% year-on-year to 104.1 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Newsweek has seen a recent run of strong growth, and was also the fastest-growing site in recent Press Gazette rankings of the top 50 news sites in the US. The newsbrand recently appointed a new executive editor, Jennifer H. Cunningham, formerly of Business Insider, who told Press Gazette her brief is to broaden Newsweek’s audience and "to enhance and augment the journalism".

Newsweek was followed by three Indian newsbrands, ahead of national elections in the country coming between April and June: financial news specialist Livemint (82.4 million visits, up 100% year-on-year), India Times (265.4 million, up 60%) and the Hindustan Times (170 million, up 45%).

Similarly month-on-month India.com (65.9 million visits, up 44%) topped the table for growth.

Two British newsbrands also featured in the fastest growing sites month-on-month. Visits to the website of Reach’s tabloid brand Express.co.uk were up 17% compared to February to reach 76.8 million, while visits to The Independent were up 12% to 109.5 million.

Among the ten biggest sites by number of visits in March, fastest-growing year-on-year was India Times. It was followed by The New York Times (666 million visits, up 11%) and Yahoo Finance (245.9 million, up 5%).

The remainder of the ten biggest sites slumped year-on-year, with Fox News seeing the sharpest decline (269.4 million visitors, down 18%), followed by aggregator MSN (676 million, down 11%).

However all top ten sites grew month-on-month. The biggest increase in visits was for India Times, followed by New York Times (up 10% month-on-month) and CNN (539.9 million, up 9%). UK newsbrands The Daily Mail (369.3 million, up 8% compared to February) and The Guardian (349.7 million, up 7%) also saw growth of more than 5% in their number of visits.

The BBC was again top of the table for visits (992.4 million) although it remained below the one billion visit mark for the second month in a row. It was followed by MSN, New York Times, CNN and Google News (375.6 million). The order of the top five is unchanged from last month.

February 2024

India Times was the fastest-growing top ten news website in the world in February, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the Indian daily newspaper’s website were up 48% year-on-year to 234.5 million, possibly due to increased interest in news about the country given India’s upcoming general election in April.

It was followed by Yahoo Finance (241.4 million visits, up 18% year-on-year) and The New York Times (606.7 million visits, up 10%) which were second and third fastest growing among the ten biggest sites by number of visits, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The Guardian made a smaller gain of 2% (327.4 million visits) and the rest of the top ten reported declines compared to February last year.

Microsoft news aggregator MSN (642.2 million visits, down 14% year-on-year) and Fox News (262.9 million, down 16%) were the two top ten sites to see double-digit drops.

Month-on-month all of the top ten sites except the India Times (up 3%) saw less traffic in February compared to January. Fox News (down 16%) and the Daily Mail’s website (343.6 million visits, down 10% month-on-month) saw the biggest falls.

Yahoo Finance (down 1% month-on-month) and New York Times (down 5%) also slumped compared to January despite growing year-on-year.

Fastest-growing year-on-year among the whole top 50 was again Newsweek (79.5 million visits, up 114%) which similarly saw strong growth in its home market of the US this month. Newsweek was followed by Indian financial newsbrand Livemint (71.8 million, up 90%) and Al Jazeera (53.4 million, up 55%), repeating the order of the fastest-growing sites year-on-year in January.

Month-on-month Newsweek (up 7% compared to January) was beaten by another Indian site, Indian Express (96.8 million, up 9% month-on-month). It was followed by GB News (55.2 million, up 4%) which entered the global top 50 for the first time last month.

The BBC was again top of the table for visits (963.4 million) although it fell below the one billion visit mark it has topped in recent months. It was followed by MSN (642.2 million), New York Times (606.7 million), CNN (497.7 million) and Google News (360.9 million). The order of the top five is unchanged from last month.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less news-based focus.

Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the world's top 50 websites for news:

January 2024

CNN was the fastest-growing top 10 news website in the world month-on-month in January, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the US cable broadcaster’s site were up 7% to reach 537.2 million compared to December, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. It reverses last month’s pattern for CNN which was the only top ten sites in December to see visits down, falling 2% between November and December.

Second fastest-growing among the biggest ten sites by number of global visits was The Guardian (360.9 million, up 7% month-on-month), while Microsoft aggregator MSN (699.6 million, up 5%) was third. All top ten sites saw month-on-month growth.

Year-on-year all of the top ten sites saw audience drops however, The Guardian, New York Times (636.3 million visits) and Yahoo Finance saw comparatively small drops in visits of less than 1% compared to January 2023. MSN saw the biggest slump in traffic for the third month in a row (down 23% year-on-year), followed by Fox News (294.8 million visits) and CNN which were both down 16% year-on-year.

Fastest-growing year-on-year among the whole top 50 was again Newsweek (74.1 million visits, up 83%) - although its traffic was lower than December. Newsweek was followed by Indian financial newsbrand Livemint (77 million, up 76%) and Al Jazeera (57.8 million, up 56%).

Month-on-month UK-based news aggregator newsnow.co.uk was top for growth with visits up 40% compared to December (58.4 million visits). It was followed by GB News (53 million, up 21%) which entered the top 50 for the first time in 50th position, and Business Insider (107.7 million, up 21%).

The BBC remained top of the table for visits and was the only site to top the 1 billion visit-threshold as in past months (1.1 billion visits), followed by MSN, New York Times, CNN and Google News (393.4 million). The order of the top five is unchanged from last month.

The post Top 50 news websites in the world: Half grow traffic year on year appeared first on Press Gazette.

Almost all the top 50 news sites in the US saw traffic fall in September, deepening a decline that began in August.

But for most publishers visits have nonetheless improved year-on-year, with three-fifths of the top 50 recording traffic increases of at least 10% compared with September 2023.

• Top 50 most popular news websites in the UK (monthly ranking)
• Top 50 most popular news websites in the world (monthly ranking)

All of the ten most-visited news sites in the US saw traffic drop compared to August. The contraction was sharpest at Yahoo Finance (down 11.3% month-on-month to 144.4 million visits) and third-placed Fox News (down 11.2% to 260.2 million).

In August eight of the top ten publishers saw month-on-month decline, which marked a correction after an eventful July (in which the Paris Olympics kicked off, Joe Biden left the US presidential race and Donald Trump was shot).

Major news events in the US in September included Hurricane Helene hitting North Carolina, a second failed assassination attempt against Trump, and the first TV debate between him and Kamala Harris.

In September the shallowest traffic falls were recorded at The New York Times (down 1.9% to 355 million) and Forbes (down 2.1% to 113 million). Despite the drop September’s ranking reflects the first time Forbes has entered the US top ten after jumping three places to ninth. Google News (visits down 6.7% to 112.7 million), meanwhile, fell out of the top ten.

CNN, which was again the most visited site in the US, saw visits fall 4% to 424 million. The site has since rolled out its inaugural paywall, the effects from which will only become visible next month.

The Daily Mail (down 7.5% month-on-month to 113 million), which was the ninth most popular news site in the US in both July and August, dropped in September to tenth.

The only riser within the top ten, besides new entrant Forbes, was People, which was up one spot despite visits dropping 9.5% month-on-month to 147.2 million.

September saw the re-entry of The Atlantic into the top 50 (visits down 0.2% month-on-month but up 15.2% year-on-year to 22.9 million) after it dropped off in August. Far-right website Gateway Pundit, which entered the chart at 48th last month, has in turn fallen out of the top 50.

Athlon Sports (up 218.4% year-on-year to 35 million) was the fastest riser in the ranks of the top 50, jumping eight places to 33rd on the back of 18% month-on-month traffic growth, the second most growth of any publisher in the top 50.

The only site to see a larger rise in visits compared with August was CBS News, where traffic rose 20.7% to 92.5 million, translating to a five-place rise on the charts.

Another notable riser was local publisher SF Gate (up six places to 36th on the back of a 0.4% month-on-month traffic drop, to 29.3 million) and libertarian blog Zero Hedge (25.2 million), which rose five places to 40th despite a 7.7% traffic decline.

The UK's The Independent, which has been on a US expansion campaign, saw some fruits from that bid in September: it was one of the four sites to see month-on-month traffic growth (rising 5.7% to 39.7 million) and notched year-on-year growth of 88.3%, the fourth highest overall.

Going the opposite direction, however, was the US outpost of fellow British publisher The Sun (22.2 million visits), which dropped 15 places to 50th on the back of 34.9% month-on-month and 65.1% year-on-year traffic declines. The Sun recently made steep cuts at its US operation.

After Athlon the fastest-growing site in the US year-on-year was The Daily Dot (up 174.2% year-on-year to 29.2 million), which entered the top 50 for the first time in August. They were followed by Newsweek, where visits rose 115.1% year-on-year to 92.6 million. Newsweek's rapid rise up the charts has stalled in recent months: having been in the top ten in July it fell out last month and in September placed 14th.

All but two of the ten most-visited sites in the US in September saw year-on-year traffic growth. New top ten entrant Forbes was also the fastest-growing site in the group, seeing visits rise 48% compared with September 2023. It was followed by People magazine (up 37.8%), USA Today (up 29.6% to 166 million) and The New York Times.

The two top ten sites to see year-on-year traffic declines were Fox News (down 0.7%) and Mail Online, where visits dropped 7.2%.

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less journalistic focus.

Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the top 50 websites for news in the US:

August 2024

Two-thirds of the top news sites in the US saw traffic shrink month-on-month in August following a bumper July.

But the picture is rosier over a longer timespan, with three-quarters of the top 50 publishers seeing year-on-year growth in visits in August.

The contraction is particularly pronounced among the top ten US news sites by traffic, where eight publishers saw visits drop compared to July.

In July every site in the top ten saw month-on-month traffic growth, likely driven by blockbuster news events including the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump and Joe Biden's departure from the presidential race.

But in August People.com (162.6 million visits) and Yahoo Finance (162.8 million) were the only top ten sites to continue growing their traffic, by 3% and 2% respectively.

The biggest drop came at CNN, which saw visits fall 16% to 441.4 million. It nonetheless remained the most-visited news site in the US, a position it has held since Similarweb updated its data model in June and pushed the site ahead of The New York Times.

The New York Times maintained its position in second place, with 361.8 million visits, and Fox News was third on 293 million.

Yahoo Finance and People both shuffled up the board one spot to sixth and seventh place respectively, pushing the New York Post (150 million visits, down 7% year-on-year) down to eighth.

Mail Online remained steady at ninth place with 122.2 million visits while Google News (120.8 million) jumped three places to tenth despite losing 4% of traffic month-on-month, displacing Newsweek (115.7 million) from the top ten.

Further down the rankings The Daily Beast was the highest debuting publication, entering the top 50 at 39th place after seeing traffic rise 22% month-on-month to 30 million. The other new entrants in August were Dailydot.com (29.8 million, 40th place), NJ.com (26.6 million, 47th) and Newsbreak.com (25.7 million, 50th).

The four sites that dropped off the top 50 to make room for them were climate site The Cooldown, which had been enjoying a rapid traffic rise in recent months, local publishers Patch.com and KSL.com, and current affairs magazine The Atlantic.

The biggest riser already on the charts was progressive news site Raw Story, which climbed eight spots to 37th place on the back of a 24% month-on-month traffic increase to 33.2 million. It was followed by UK news site The Independent (up six places with 37.6 million) and the Los Angeles Times (up five places with 28.5 million).

Among all top 50 sites The Daily Dot grew fastest month-on-month, seeing traffic rise 25%.

Year-on-year, however, the fastest growth was at sports publisher Athlon Sports, which has been the case among the US top 50 every month since May. The site received 374% more visits in August 2024 than in August 2023, reaching 29.6 million. The next fastest growth was at Newsweek, where traffic rose 158%, and the Daily Dot (88%).

Among the top ten news sites by US traffic People magazine again saw the most year-on-year growth in August, having also been the fastest annual growers in April, May and June. July's fastest year-on-year riser, USA Today, followed in second place in August.

July 2024

All but two of the top 50 news websites in the US saw visits grow month-on-month amid an eventful July for political news.

All of the top-ten most-visited news sites in the US saw traffic growth when compared with June, according to figures from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. The biggest increases in traffic were at USA Today (34%), CNN (33%), Newsweek (21%), Fox News (20%) and The New York Times (15%).

These figures contrast against June, when none of the top ten saw month-on-month growth.

The figures for July are the first Press Gazette has published since Similarweb updated its data model. The company says the update has improved the accuracy of the data, particularly with regard to smaller websites.

The most notable result of the change appears to be that it has bounced CNN (525 million visits) ahead of The New York Times (385.7 million) to retake the top spot on the traffic ranking.

Fox News (336.7 million) retained its position in third place, ahead of MSN (263 million) which it overtook in May.

Under the new model People.com (158.3 million) drops from fifth place, which it occupied in May, to eighth, behind USA Today (188.1 million) in fifth, the New York Post in sixth (160.5 million) and Yahoo Finance in seventh (159.5 million). Mail Online (136.1 million) gains a place, rising to ninth, and Newsweek (133.3 million) leaps from 16th to tenth place.

The only sites to see visits decline month-on-month were the US website of the UK's The Sun newspaper (37.1 million) and Athlon Sports (27.5 million), which both dropped 3%.

Year-on-year, however, Athlon (athlonsports.com) saw the greatest growth in the top 50, drawing in 697% more visits in July 2024 than in July 2023.

The second-fastest annual growth was at climate site The Cooldown (25.5 million, up 562%) and the third-fastest was at Newsweek (172%), which was also the fastest-growing site among the top ten domains.

All the top-ten sites by total visits grew year-on-year in July, seven of them by double-digit percentages.

Six of the top 50 saw year-on-year visit declines in July. The Sun was again the biggest faller, dropping 46% of its traffic. It was followed by Yahoo News (down 22%), Buzzfeed (down 17%), the Los Angeles Times (down 12%), and CNBC and SFGate, each of which declined 2%.

The largest gains month-on month were at political and hard news sites, again reflecting a historic July for news. ABC News (83.5 million visits) saw the most growth between June and July, increasing traffic 81%. MSNBC (29.2 million) increased visits by 66%, NBC News (128 million) by 62%, Axios (40 million) by 54% and The Atlantic (28.2 million) by 52%.

June 2024

Newsweek was once again the fastest-growing news website in the US in June 2023, notching 15% month-on-month growth to 110.2 million visits.

In addition Newsweek saw visits rise 144% compared to June the prior year, but it did not see the most year-on-year growth among the top 50. The fastest year-on-year growth came at Athlon Sports, which attracted 28.5 million visits in June, up 484% from the prior year.

Climate news site The Cooldown saw the second most year-on-year growth, with visits rising 152% to 21.9 million.

Among the top ten sites by traffic no publisher saw month-on-month growth in June. The New York Post saw the biggest decline - dropping 11% of traffic month-on-month - followed by The New York Times, which dropped 10% to 336 million visits.

Celebrity-focused People.com saw the most year-on-year growth in the top ten, growing visits 37% to 142.1 million. It was followed by USA Today, which saw traffic rise 11% to 140.3 million.

May 2024

Note: Figures from May 2024 and earlier were calculated using an old Similarweb data model that has since been updated.

Celebrity-focused newsbrand People.com was the fastest-growing news website in the US in May, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to the popular magazine’s website were up 18% month-on-month to 165.3 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

It was followed by two News Corp titles, foxnews.com (269.1 million visits) and nypost.com (160.8 million), which were both up 8% month-on-month.

CNN (419.2 million visits, up 3%) and the New York Times (503.4 million, up 3%) also saw growth, albeit more modest, compared to April.

While the New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits followed by CNN, a strong monthly performance from Fox News led it to overtake MSN (261.3 million visits) into third place, pushing MSN into fourth.

People meanwhile retook fifth place following its strong growth, with Yahoo Finance (154.4 million) falling into seventh.

Year-on-year, People was again fastest-growing with visits up 42%, while The New York Times (up 17%) and USA Today (125.7 million, up 16%) also saw strong growth - contrasting with USA Today’s sharp monthly slump (its visits were down 15% making it the biggest-falling site among the top ten compared to April).

Among the top 50, Newsweek, which has topped the list for growth in several of the past months, was only the third fastest growing site year-on-year despite another strong month.

Visits to the news magazine’s website were up 198% compared to May 2023 to 95.5 million but it was beaten by two specialist newsbrands.

Fastest-growing was long-standing sports publisher Athlon Sports, which entered our top 50 for the first time in 33rd place (35.9 million visits, up 962% year-on-year). Athlon is best known for publishing pre-season single-title sports annuals on professional and college sports, and was temporarily merged with Sports Illustrated in 2022. It was followed by financial news and advice site Moneywise (27.6 million visits, up 334% year-on-year).

The same two sites topped the table for monthly growth with visits to Athlon Sports up 126% and visits to Moneywise up 70% compared to April.

AP News (98.8 million, up 21%) and Variety (43.8 million, up 19%) also saw growth of over or close to a fifth.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking climbing one place into tenth (117.8 million visits), while the BBC was in rank 11 (112.7 million).

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less news-based focus.

April 2024

Newsweek continued a strong run of growth to retake its spot as the fastest-growing news website in the US in April, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to the news magazine’s website were up 149% year-on-year to 90.5 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Newsweek was followed by Virginia-based national newsbrand Axios which like Newsweek more than doubled its traffic (31.9 million visits, up 107% year-on-year), new climate and sustainability news site The Cool Down (27.8 million visits, up 71% year-on-year) and Advance Local Michigan news site M Live (22.7 million, up 66%).

Month-on-month Newsweek did less well, seeing no change in audience compared to March. Instead fastest-growing was M Live (up 27% month-on-month), followed by CBS News (84 million, up 26%), Axios (up 21%), and technology specialist The Verge (up 17%).

The US Sun was also among the fastest-growing sites month-on-month, up 16% to 46.3 million, sharing joint fifth place with Forbes (108.3 million, also up 16% month-on-month).

Among the ten biggest sites by number of visits, celebrity newsbrand People was the fastest growing year-on-year for a second month (140.2 million visits, up 31%). It was followed by Gannett’s flagship newsbrand USA Today (148.1 million, up 25% compared to April 2023),

The remainder of the top ten either declined year-on-year or in the case of the New York Times (up 1%) and the New York Post (down 1%) registered virtually no change in traffic. Fox News saw the biggest slump at 14% with visits down to 249.9 million despite a busy news cycle in the US with national elections later this year.

Month-on-month New York Post (149.4 million, up 7%), USA Today (up 3%) and MSN (263.2 million, up 2%) were fastest-growing. Those that declined only saw small traffic drops with People (down 4% compared to March) and Washington Post (117 million, also down 4%) seeing the largest drops.

The New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits (487.6 million), followed by CNN (405.7 million), MSN, Fox News and Yahoo Finance (151 million) which retained its fifth position after knocking People off fifth spot last month.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (rank 11, 115.4 million visits), pulling further ahead of the BBC (rank 13, 106.1 million), which fell one place from twelfth in March.

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

March 2024

Celebrity newsbrand People was the fastest-growing news website in the US in March according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to People.com were up 27% year-on-year to reach 145.7 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Along with USA Today (143.4 million visits, up 13% year-on-year) and New York Times (498.6 million, up 10%), it was one of three of the top ten websites by number of visits in March to see double-digit growth.

In contrast, top ten sites Fox News (248.5 million, down 19%), the New York Post (139.3 million, down 16%), MSN (258.5 million visits, down 13%), Google News (131.8 million, down 10%) and CNN (402.2 million, down 10%) saw double-digit slumps in visits compared to March 2023.

Month-on-month the picture was more positive for the ten biggest sites, with all but People (down 8%) seeing more visits in March than February. The New York Post (up 12%) saw the biggest monthly gain, followed by The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post (122 million) and CNN, which each saw a 9% month-on-month boost in visits.

Among the wider top 50, The Cool Down, which entered our ranking last month for the first time in 42nd position, saw strong growth for another month, moving up from 42nd to 35th in the table. Visits to the climate-specialised newsbrand were up 25% month-on-month and 421% year-on-year (30.4 million visits).

The Cool Down was the fastest-growing site year-on-year among the whole top 50. It was followed by Newsweek (90.5 million visits, up 144% year-on-year).

A Newsweek spokesperson told Press Gazette last month that “the share of readers visiting us via our front door is setting records” and is its “best source of stable, growing audience independent of third-party algorithm changes” as many publishers experience Google and Facebook referral declines.

Month-on-month, both Newsweek (up 31% compared to February) and The Cool Down were beaten by publishing group Advance Local’s Alabama-focused site al.com (22.6 million visits, up 67% month-on-month). It was followed by independently run consumer-focused science news site sciencealert.com (24.4 million visits, up 66% month-on-month).

Long-running magazine The Atlantic also saw a strong March with 30 million visits, an increase of 26% month-on-month.

The New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits, followed by CNN, MSN, Fox News and Yahoo Finance (150.1 million visits) which knocked People out of fifth position.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (rank 11, 113 million visits), just ahead of the BBC (rank 12, 106.9 million).

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less news-based focus.

February 2024

Newsweek was the fastest-growing news site in the US in February while climate news startup The Cooldown entered the list in 42nd position, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to the site of news magazine Newsweek, which has expanded its rankings content and consumer guides in the past year, were up 130% year-on-year to 69.1 million, making it the fastest growing news site in the top 50, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. (We excluded The Cool Down from the year-on-year analysis because the site only recently launched towards the end of 2022).

Newsweek was followed by Axios (25 million visits, up 88% year-on-year) and Politico (50.7 million, up 51%). UK newsbrand The Independent (25.7 million, up 44%) also made the top ten for growth, ranking 39th in the top 50. Last month The Independent also featured among the ten fastest-growing sites in the top 50, as it seeks to grow its US foothold.

Month-on-month the fastest-growing newsbrand was The Cool Down (24.3 million visits, up 52% compared to January). Ranked 42nd in this month’s top 50, the site was launched by founder and CEO of the sports media outlet Bleacher Report Dave Finocchio and Anna Robertson, an ABC and Yahoo News executive, and purports to be the "first mainstream climate brand" in the US.

It was followed for month-on-month growth in visits by progressive news website Rawstory (20.4 million, up 24%) and Newsweek (up 10% month-on-month).

None of the ten biggest news websites by number of visits grew month-on-month in February. People (158.7 million visits, down 2% month-on-month) and Yahoo Finance (147.2 million, down 3%) saw the smallest falls, while Fox News (242.5 million, down 10%) and Gannett’s flagship title USA Today (131.3 million, down 13%) saw the only double-digit declines.

Annually, the picture was more mixed for the ten biggest sites. People (up 30% year-on-year), USA Today (up 20%) and Yahoo Finance (up 14%) saw the biggest increases in visits compared to February 2023.

At the other end of the list however, Microsoft news aggregator MSN (247.4 million visits) and News Corp’s New York Post (124.9 million) saw the biggest year-on-year slumps at 17% each.

The New York Times (456.7 million visits) remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits, followed by CNN (372.8 million), MSN, Fox News and People.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (107.7 million visits) in tenth, one place ahead of the BBC (101 million).

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

January 2024

The Independent was one of the fastest-growing news sites in the US in January, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

Visits to the UK publisher’s site were up 29% month-on-month to 24.3 million, making it the second-fastest growing news site in the US, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

The Independent is one of several UK newsbrands along with The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Express and the BBC that have recently put focus on expansion in the US.

The Independent’s chief executive Christian Broughton told Press Gazette last year that US expansion, along with e-commerce, Independent TV, reader revenues and AI, are the main drivers of growth for the publisher.

The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (119.8 million visits) although it dropped one place to eleventh from tenth in the past month.

Fastest-growing month-on-month in the top 50 was Advance Local-owned New Jersey news site nj.com (23.5 million visits, up 33% month-on-month) while third fastest-growing was Business Insider (74.4 million, up 21%).

Year-on-year, compared to January 2023, the fastest-growing site was Newsweek (62.7 million visits, up 94%), followed by Axios (28.8 million visits, up 60%) which in recent years has expanded into local news and its professional subscription service, Axios Pro.

The Independent also featured among the fastest-growing websites year-on-year coming in fifth place having seen visits up 40% compared to last January.

Among the ten biggest news websites by volume of visits, USA Today was the fastest-growing for a third month in a row.

Visits to the Gannett-owned site were up by 32% year-on-year to 151.4 million – echoing its year-on-year growth rate last month.

It was followed by People (161.4 million visits, up 16% year-on-year) and both were the only large sites to see year-on-year growth for the second month in a row.

People and USA Today also saw the biggest growth month-on-month among the top ten sites. Visits to People were up 11% compared to December while they were up 8% to USA Today.

In contrast to the annual figures, however, all of the ten biggest sites saw month-on-month growth of at least 3% in January.

The largest site in the US remained The New York Times (482.7 million visits), followed by CNN (398.8 million) and Fox News (270.2 million).

Since November Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

December 2023

USA Today was the fastest-growing of the ten biggest news websites in the US in December for a second month in a row, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the Gannett-owned site were up by a third (32%) year-on-year to 140.8 million - dwarfing its own year-on-year growth rate of 11% last month, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

People (145.9 million visits, up 20% year-on-year) was the only other top ten site by number of visits to see an increase in traffic in December.

The remainder of the large US news sites saw falls in traffic, echoing our global ranking where none of the top ten sites grew year-on-year, possibly due to changes in Google’s search algorithm in the last four months of 2023.

MSN (259.2 million visits, down 33% year-on-year), Google News (134.1 million, down 20%) and CNN (374.7 million, down 17%) saw the biggest drops.

Since November, Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however make up a very small share of all visits to the CNN domain in the US.

Two sites focused on news from Israel featured among the fastest-growing in the overall top 50, due to audience interest in the conflict in Gaza. Fastest-growing was Jerusalem-based Times of Israel (21.5 million visits, up 329%), while Yeshiva World (20.3 million, up 37%) also made the list of biggest-growing sites.

Aggregator Newsbreak (22.5 million, up 69%) and Axios (24.8 million, up 46%) also appeared among the fastest-growing sites in the top 50.

The New York Times saw visits grow 6% month-on-month compared to November and was again the biggest site in the US (464.4 million visits). CNN again came in second after leading the table for several months beforehand (373.7 million).

Fox News (262.1 million) and MSN again took third and fourth place, but People leapfrogged Yahoo Finance into fifth.

The Daily Mail jumped another place in December to rank tenth (116.3 million visits, down 12% year-on-year but up by the same month-on-month) ahead of fellow British news provider the BBC (104.6 million, rank 12).

The Sun performed markedly better compared to November, ranking ten places higher in 24th with 48.3 million visits, an increase of 70% month-on-month. However it was down by a third (32%) compared to December 2022.

November 2023

USA Today was the fastest-growing top ten news website in the US in November, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the Gannett-owned site were up 11% year-on-year to 121.8 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. It was one of just two top ten news sites by number of monthly visits along with People (127.3 million visits, up 9% year-on-year) to see an increase in traffic in November.

The remaining top ten newsbrands saw a slump in traffic with Microsoft-owned msn.com (243.3 million visits, down 37% year-on-year), CNN (372.4 million, down 27%) and Fox News (252.2 million, down 26%) recording the largest falls at more than a quarter each. This month the figures for edition.cnn.com have been excluded from Similarweb’s report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. Visits to edition.cnn.com however last month made up just 1.5% of all visits to the CNN domain in the US and the change will therefore be slight.

The biggest site by number of visits was The New York Times (436.8 million visits) which has in recent months been jostling for top spot with CNN. The US cable broadcaster fell to second in November (372.4 million). Third was Fox News (252.2 million), while MSN was fourth and Yahoo Finance was fifth (138.6 million).

The best-ranked UK newsbrand in the US top 50 was Mail Online, which jumped one place to rank 11 despite a month-on-month fall in visits. It was followed by the BBC (rank 12, 99.9 million visits). The BBC’s visit total is slightly lower this month due to the exclusion going forward of visits to bbc.co.uk in the US since this traffic is redirected. The Sun meanwhile came in 34th position as it continues to lose traffic in the US (28.2 million visits, down 60% year-on-year and 44% compared to October).

Among the top 50 as a whole, fastest-growing was Times of Israel (27.3 million visits, up 468% compared to November 2022). It was followed by Newsweek (57.5 million, up 87%), aggregator Newsbreak (20.6 million, up 61%) and UK news site The Independent (20.4 million visits, up 28%). Jewish news site Yeshiva World (19.2 million, up 28% year-on-year) came in fifth. Like Times of Israel its growth is linked to increased interest in news about Israel and the Middle East region following the outbreak of war with Gaza on 7 October.

October 2023

Thirty of the 50 biggest news websites in the US (60%) grew traffic year-on-year in October, with The Times of Israel seeing the biggest growth.

The Jerusalem-based online newspaper saw visits up 708% year-on-year to 29.6 million, followed in second place by Al Jazeera (27.8 million visits, up 132%), according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Neither site has previously appeared in our top 50 ranking, suggesting the boost in visits is linked to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas which began on 7 October. The Times of Israel entered the ranking in 35th position, with Al Jazeera just behind in 36th.

AP (99.2 million visits, up 62%), ABC News (52 million visits, up 62% also) and The Independent (22.5 million, up 57%) also saw significant year-on-year growth in visits, suggesting a similar boost linked to increased reader interest in events in Gaza and Israel.

Among October’s top ten sites by number of visits, more than half saw year-on-year growth, reversing last month’s trend when all but two top of the ten sites saw a slump in visits.

People saw the biggest audience surge in October (137 million visits, up 31% year-on-year). It was followed by CNN (516.9 million, up 23%), Fox News (306.8 million, up 16%) and New York Post (137.3 million, up 15%). The New York Times (485.1 million, up 3%) and the BBC (150.7 million, up 1%) saw smaller growth in the single figures.

Despite smaller year-on-year growth, the BBC’s strong month-on-month growth of 25% meant it jumped five places in the ranking to fifth place. However it should be noted that Similarweb’s data captures visits to the whole BBC.com domain, which includes more than just news.

Washington Post (129.9 million, down 17%) and news aggregator MSN (259.8 million, down 19% saw the biggest falls among the top ten.

The biggest site by number of visits was CNN, which overtook the New York Times to resume its place as the top US news website. The New York Times has been the country’s biggest news website for the past three months and for much of the last two years, however that position had traditionally been held by CNN.

The best-ranked UK newsbrand in the US top 50 after the BBC was Mail Online (127 million visits, rank 12), followed by The Guardian (79.5 million, rank 18).

The Sun, which has generally seen consistently strong growth over the past two years in this ranking, fell seven places to rank 30 (45.6 million visits, down 24% year-on-year).

The Mirror (rank 48, 10.1 million visits), The Express (rank 50, 8.6 million) and Cosmopolitan (rank 42, 17.6 million) were among 11 sites that entered the top 50 for the first time in October.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less news-based focus.

September 2023

AP News and Axios were among the top three fastest-growing news sites in the US in September, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

Visits to the website of the UK public broadcaster were up 9% year-on-year to 133.9 million according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Visits to second-fastest growing AP were up 49% year-on-year to 79.6 million, while third-biggest growing Axios saw visits up 37% to 22.8 million.

US aggregator Newsbreak was however top of the table for growth with visits up 53% to 19.7 million.

The Independent also featured among the fastest-growing sites, coming in tenth place for growth with visits up 17% to 23.1 million. This however was markedly less than August when the British newsbrand’s year-on-year growth was 53%.

Among the ten biggest sites by number of visits in September, USA Today was fastest-growing for the second month in a row and climbed three places compared to August to seventh. Visits to the Gannett-owned newsbrand were up 20% to 126.8 million.

Celebrity newsbrand People (122.9 million visits, up 7%) was the only other top ten site to see increased visits in September, and also climbed three places in the ranking (into ninth position).

The New York Times retained its position as the biggest news website in the US for the third month in a row (425 million visits), once again opening up a gap with second-placed CNN (401.2 million visits). CNN saw a bigger month-on-month traffic slump (down 13%) than the New York Times (down 8%).

CNN was historically top until February 2022, when the New York Times saw a jump in visits following its purchase of Wordle, and the broadcaster was briefly top again in June.

Completing the top five, which was unchanged from August, was Microsoft news aggregator MSN (246 million visits), Fox News (241.8 million) and Yahoo Finance (135.8 million). The BBC (120.6 million visits) fell one place to tenth compared to August but maintained a spot among the ten biggest newsbrands in the US.

Other British newbrands in the top 50 included The Guardian (68.7 million visits, rank 18), which saw visits fall 10% year-on-year, and The Sun’s US edition (50.2 million, rank 23), where traffic was up 13%.

Despite growing year-on-year, a sharp month-on-month fall in the number of visits at The Independent meant that along with technology site The Verge, the British newsbrand saw the biggest drop in places in September compared to August (both down seven spots).

August 2023

The BBC was one of the fastest-growing top ten websites in the US in August, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

The BBC was outdone, however, by USA Today which saw visits up 23% to 129.4 million. The Gannett-owned newsbrand has seen regular growth in recent months, and this month climbed the ranking into tenth place compared to twelfth place in July.

Similarweb’s data captures visits to BBC.com and bbc.co.uk meaning that visits for the BBC’s entertainment content will also be included.

USA Today and the BBC were followed by CNN, the only other site in the top ten by number of visits to grow year-on year (461 million visits, up 5%).

Washington Post (139.8 million, down 11%) and Google News (147.9 million, down 17%) were in contrast the biggest fallers among the top ten sites.

The New York Times maintained its title as the biggest news website in the US for the second month in a row, although its lead over CNN fell to just 800,000 as CNN saw a bigger month-on-month traffic boost (11% versus 5%). CNN was historically top until February 2022, as the New York Times saw a jump in visits following its purchase of Wordle, and the broadcaster was briefly top again in June.

Microsoft news aggregator Msn.com (270.6 million visits), foxnews.com (268.8 million) and Yahoo Finance (155.9 million) make up the remainder of the top five.

Among the top 50 as a whole, AP saw the highest year-on-year growth with visits up 85% to 55.6 million, echoing its leading position for growth in our global ranking.

It was followed by cbsnews.com (67.8 million, up 54%) and independent.co.uk (30.6 million, up 53%).

The Sun’s US edition, which has regularly featured among the fastest-growing sites in the US top 50 in the past year, this month recorded a drop as visits to the-sun.com were down 9% year-on-year to 49.5 million.

AP saw the biggest jump in rank, climbing four positions to 16 in contrast to last month when it was the biggest faller (dropping four places to 20) while entertainment title Variety (24.4 million, rank 43, down five places) saw the biggest fall in position.

July 2023

The Independent was the joint fastest-growing news website in the US in July, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

Visits to the website of the UK newsbrand were up 69% year-on-year to 31.5 million according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. The Independent, along with the BBC and The Sun, has recently increased its investment in the US in a bid to tap into the country’s large news market.

It was tied for growth with US broadcasting giant CBS News, which also saw visits up 69% year-on-year to 71.5 million.

Third fastest-growing was celebrity news-focused People.com (131.9 million visits, up 55% year-on-year) which jumped three places compared to June’s ranking to enter the list of the top ten biggest sites in the US in July.

The Sun’s US edition, which has regularly featured among the fastest-growing sites in the US top 50 in the past year, was the seventh fastest-growing in July as visits to the-sun.com were up 33% year-on-year to 54.7 million.

Sfgate.com, the website of Hearst’s San Francisco Chronicle, saw the biggest jump in rank, climbing eight positions to 33 (33.7 million visits), while AP (67.3 million visits, rank 20, down four places) and ABC News (39.5 million, rank 31, down five places) saw the biggest falls in position.

The New York Times overtook CNN to resume its title as the biggest news website in the US by number of visits. CNN was historically top until February 2022, as the New York Times saw a jump in visits following its purchase of Wordle. But CNN was briefly top again in June.

In July there were 441.6 million visits to the New York Times website, compared to 415.2 for CNN.com, but both did see a fall in traffic by 4% and 9% respectively year-on-year.

The remaining top five sites - msn.com (269.6 million visits), foxnews.com (262.1 million) and nypost.com (153.5 million) - saw their positions in the ranking unchanged from June.

The BBC, which climbed one place in June to sixth position, fell two places to eighth with 134.6 million visits, a year-on-year fall of 7%. Similarweb’s data captures visits to BBC.com and bbc.co.uk meaning that visits for the BBC’s entertainment content will also be included.

Among the sites that saw the biggest falls in traffic this month were conservative US publisher Daily Wire (down 36% year-on-year to 21 million visits) and bloomberg.com (29.1 million visits, down 24% year-on-year).

Among the ten biggest websites, only Dotdash Meredith-owned website People.com and the BBC (134.6 million visits, up 7%) grew year-on-year.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites which do not fall under news, culture and lifestyle in its definition.

Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and worldwide top 50 English-language news ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.

June 2023

CNN overtook the New York Times to become the biggest news website in the US in June, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

Historically CNN had been above the New York Times but the newspaper brand overtook the broadcaster in February 2022 after it bought the Wordle game and had remained above ever since.

Visits to the CNN website were up 5% year-on-year to 458 million in June, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Visits to the New York Times website meanwhile were down 9% to 423.2 million pushing the newspaper brand into second position. In recent months, CNN has been closing the gap on the New York Times as web traffic to nytimes.com has consistently fallen compared to 2022, possibly in part due to falling interest in the popular game Wordle.

CNN and the New York Times were among several websites that changed ranks among the top ten.

The BBC climbed one place in June to sixth position as visits to the UK broadcaster’s website were up 26% year-on-year (152.7 million visits). It was the fastest-growing top ten brand by number of visits. While Similarweb’s data captures visits to BBC.com meaning that visits for the BBC’s entertainment content will also be included, the corporation has recently ramped up its editorial presence in the US.

Microsoft aggregator MSN and Fox News meanwhile swapped positions in June. MSN climbed to third place with 289.5 million visits (up 6% year-on-year) while Fox News (276.5 million, down 5%) fell to rank four.

Among the ten biggest websites, USA Today was the second-fastest for growth (124.8 million visits, up 23%). The Gannett-owned brand was the only large news site other than the BBC to see double-digit audience growth in June. USA Today climbed three places in June to enter the top ten in tenth position.

Across the top 50 as a whole, cbsnews.com was the fastest-growing (75.5 million visits, up 71% year-on-year). The news website of the US broadcaster has enjoyed a recent strong run of growth and was also this month’s fastest growing top 50 news website worldwide.

Second-fastest growing in the top 50 was The Sun’s US edition (57 million visits, up 69%) while fellow British newsbrand The Independent (35 million visits, up 66%) was fourth-fastest growing. Like the BBC, both have recently invested in ramping up their US presence.

Among the sites that saw the biggest falls in traffic this month were conservative US publisher Daily Wire (down 43% year-on-year to 23.1 million visits) and digital home of Hearst print title San Francisco Chronicle, sfgate.com (24.7 million visits, down 29% year-on-year). Hearst also operates a paywalled premium website serving the city, sfchronicle.com, which is not included in the top 50.

May 2023

The Sun was the fastest-growing newsbrand in the US in May for the second month in a row, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

There were 69 million visits to the website of the UK tabloid’s US edition, which launched in 2020, an increase of 80% compared to May last year.

It was followed by cbsnews.com which has similarly enjoyed a recent strong run of growth (58.9 million visits, up 43% year-on-year) and NBC Universal-owned MSNBC (20.1 million visits, up 37%).

Meanwhile, the website of another British newsbrand also seeking to expand further in the US, The Independent, also made the top ten fastest-growing list. Visits to independent.co.uk were up 33% to 29.7 million.

Among the top ten sites by number of visits, there was little year-on-year growth. Visits to the BBC were up 1% to 142.1 million, while MSN saw virtually no change compared to last May (278.5 million visits).

In contrast, much of the top ten saw large falls. The biggest drop was seen by the New York Times (432.1 million visits, down 24% year-on-year) and Google News (144.2 million visits, down 20%).

Yahoo Finance (142 million visits, down 19%), Washington Post (124.8 million, down 19%), Mail Online (118.9 million, down 10%) and celebrity-focused site People (116.3 million, down 13%) also saw double-digit falls.

The New York Times maintained its spot at the top of the table, although second-place CNN continues to close the gap. CNN grew 3% month-on-month while the New York Times’ audience was largely static. The New York Times’ fall in traffic is possibly linked to declining interest in the Wordle puzzle and, like other titles, less news interest compared to the early months of the Ukraine war last year.

While the ranking of the top five brands remained unchanged, with Fox News, MSN and New York Post rounding out the top five, the BBC fell one place to rank seven after climbing last month, while Google News was up to rank six.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites which do not fall under news, culture and lifestyle in its definition.

Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and worldwide top 50 English-language news ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.

April 2023

The Sun’s US edition retook its place at the top of the list as the fastest-growing newsbrand in the US in April, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly top 50 ranking.

Last month the US edition of the UK tabloid was third-fastest growing behind Substack and CBS News. It last topped the list for fastest-growing site in October last year.

Second fastest-growing in April was CBS News which has similarly enjoyed a recent strong run of growth (51.9 million visits in April, up 51%), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

Among the ten largest sites by number of visits, fastest growing was USA Today up 26% to 118.8 million.

It was followed by News Corp-owned Fox News. Visits to the site were up 5% year-on-year to 290.9 million, amid a series of legal controversies involving the cable broadcaster concerning the 2020 US election.

No other top ten site saw visits increase in April. In contrast a number of them - washingtonpost.com (121.2 million visits, down 14% year-on-year), Google News (137.6 million, down 19%), Yahoo Finance (128.9 million, down 19%) and the New York Times (430.2 million visits, down 26%) - saw double-digit falls in visits.

The New York Times’ continued fall in traffic is possibly linked to falling interest in Wordle and, like other titles, a loss of the audience boost that came with the early months of the Ukraine war last year.

Despite falling traffic, the New York Times maintained its spot as the biggest site in the US followed by CNN (416.7 million visits), Fox News and msn.com (261 million visits).

Despite a small drop in visits the BBC (down 1% year-on-year, 138.2 million visits) climbed two places in the ranking compared to March - coming in sixth position in April. The BBC recently stepped up its editorial investment in the US.

March 2023

The New York Times saw the biggest drop in US traffic among the top 50 websites in the country in March, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

The number of visits to nytimes.com fell 35% to 452.4 million - echoing both a similar fall in Press Gazette’s global top 50 ranking and the site’s 21% fall in February’s US ranking.

The decline is potentially linked to declining interest in word game Wordle, which went viral early last year and quickly snapped up by the New York Times, and a widespread fall in year-on-year traffic comparisons following a surge in news interest about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The New York Times was also one of eight top ten sites by number of visits that saw a fall in traffic in March, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The site with the second largest year-on-year fall in the top ten was Google News (146.9 million visits, down 25%) followed by washingtonpost.com (127.4 million visits, down 23%), cnn.com (446.2 million visits, also down 23%) and bbc.com and bbc.co.uk (141.7 million visits, down 21%).

CNBC was the fastest-growing top ten site (128.9 million visits, up 9% year-on-year).

Within the overall top 50, the fastest-growing site was newsletter platform Substack to which US visits were up 37% to 30.3 million. Second-fastest growing was cbsnews.com (52.8 million visits, up 32%) while the Sun’s US edition came in third (63.6 million, up 27%) continuing its run of rapid growth since launching across the Atlantic in 2020.

Despite its year-on-year audience fall, the New York Times remains the largest site by number of visits in the US top 50. It was followed by CNN, foxnews.com (305.6 million) and msn.com (297.8 million visits). Fox News rose one place up March’s ranking to displace MSN from third place.

Yahoo Finance (148.4 million visits, rank six), Google News (rank seven) and cnbc.com (rank ten) were the other sites at the top of the table to climb up the ranking in March.

The Sun US edition saw the largest drop in places among the top 50, falling from rank 15 in February to rank 20 in March although it's year-on-year growth continued to be strong.

February 2023

The Sun’s US edition was one of the fastest-growing websites in the US in February, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

The number of visits to the US edition of the UK tabloid were up 56% to reach 71.5 million in February, making it the second fastest-growing site in the US top 50. The Sun’s US edition has grown rapidly since launching in the US in 2020 and is now ranked 15th in the US top 50 - a gain of four places since last month.

Fastest-growing was entertainment site Variety.com (27.4 million visits, up 67%), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb, while cbsnews.com was third-fastest growing (47 million visits, up 43%).

The New York Times, which has regularly appeared among the fastest-growing sites in this ranking in the past year, saw its traffic fall by 21% to 418.6 million in February - reflective of its global traffic trend.

Among the top ten sites by audience size, only three saw an increase in traffic. They were people.com (up 36% year-on-year to 122.1 million), nypost.com (up 12% to 151.1 million) and Microsoft news aggregator MSN (up 9% to 298.3 million).

Despite the large fall in visits, The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the ranking for number of visits. It was followed by CNN (400.3 million visits), msn.com and foxnews.com (291.3 million).

This month, News Corp-owned nypost.com (151.1 million visits, up 12% year-on-year) entered the top five, displacing Google News which fell to eighth place (131.1 million visits, down 26%).

The BBC climbed one place in the ranking to sixth (135.8 million, down 10% year-on-year).

Today.com (24.7 million visits, up 33% year-on-year) saw the biggest jump in rank, climbing six places to rank 39.

The site of celebrity and entertainment magazine Us Weekly (Usmagazine.com) meanwhile saw the biggest drop, falling eight places to rank 50 (18.3 million visits, down 23% year-on-year).

January 2023

CBS News was for the second month in a row the fastest-growing news site in the US, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

The number of visits to the website of the US broadcaster were up 79% year-on-year to 56.7 million in January.

It was followed by the nytimes.com (488.3 million visits, up 50% year-on-year), entertainment news provider variety.com (31.4 million visits, up 43%) and the-sun.com (62.7 million visits, up 40%).

The Sun’s US edition has grown rapidly since launching in the US in 2020. The site’s audience has more than quadrupled in the last two years from just under 13 million 24 months ago.

Among just the top ten sites by audience size, the New York Times was again the fastest-growing (CBS ranks 22nd). It was followed by msn.com (406.4 million visits, up 37%), People.com (139.6 million, up 31%), nypost.com (162.4 million, up 14%) and combined visits to bbc.com & bbc.co.uk (149.8 million, up 11%).

The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the ranking for number of visits in a top five that remained unchanged from last month. It was followed by CNN (482.6 million visits), msn.com (406.4 million), foxnews.com (326 million) and Google News (166.6 million).

Among the sites that saw the biggest jumps in rank in January, compared to the previous month were three local news sites that each jumped six places. The website of the Los Angeles Times (38.3 million visits climbed to 29th place), San Francisco’s sfgate.com (34.1 million visits) climbed to rank 32, while Utah local ksl.com (22 million visits was up to 44th place.

The Atlantic’s website (27.6 million visits) saw the largest drop (down 7 places to 38, while today.com (22 million visits) fell 5 places to rank 45.

Two sites that did not make December’s top 50 entered the list this month. They were conservative news sites epochtimes.com (23.3 million visits) which entered in 43 place and Advance’s New Jersey site, nj.com (18.7 million visits) which entered in 50th position.

December 2022

Two British newsbrands featured among the top five fastest-growing top ten newsbrands in the US in December, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

The number of visits to Mail Online were up 14% year-on-year to 131.9 million making it the third-fastest growing site.

Visits to the BBC were up 11% to reach 141.1 million, making it the fourth-fastest growing. The BBC has in recent months seen consistent growth in its US traffic, having stepped up its editorial investment in the US.

Taking the top spot for growth among the ten biggest sites was once again the New York Times. Visits to nytimes.com increased 57% year-on-year to 488.4 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Second-fastest growing for another month meanwhile was Microsoft’s news aggregator msn.com (385.4 million visits, up 29%).

The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the ranking for number of visits, while CNN maintained its second place (448.6 million visits) and msn.com its third spot.

Washingtonpost.com (144.6 million visits) dropped two ranks from sixth place in November to eighth this month, swapping places with nypost.com (152 million visits).

The Sun’s US edition was among the news sites that saw the biggest jump in rank between November and December. The-sun.com climbed five places to rank 18 in December with 62.2 million visits, up 49% year-on-year.

Substack.com (27 million visits) and today.com (25.9 million visits) also saw large changes in rank, climbing six and eight places respectively.

Among the whole top 50 list, the fastest-growing news website in December was cbsnews.com (51.3 million visits, up 84% year-on-year). It was followed by entertainment newsbrand variety.com (29.1 million visits, up 65%) and last month’s fastest-growing site nytimes.com. The-sun.com was fourth fastest-growing.

The only site not in November’s top 50 ranking to enter the list this month was celebrity news specialist Us Weekly. There were 22.4 million visits to its site usmagazine.com (rank 46).

November 2022

The New York Times was the fastest-growing news website in the US in November while the BBC was one of the strongest-performing large websites , according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

Of the top ten biggest English-language sites by number of visits, the New York Times grew the most year-on-year (535.1 million visits (up 81%), according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The NYT was followed by Microsoft news aggregator, msn.com (383.9 million visits, up 36%) and the BBC (140.7 million visits, up 22%). Fourth fastest-growing among the top ten was CNN with 506.8 million visits (up 14% year-on-year).

Although the BBC sites saw slightly less visits in November compared to October, the UK public broadcaster has been among the top three large sites in the US for year-on-year growth since September. The BBC has in recent months ramped up its investment in the US, doubling its editorial staff.

In total eight of the top ten sites in the US saw more traffic in November than the same month last year, echoing the pattern seen in Press Gazette’s global ranking this month.

The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the ranking for number of visits, with the frontrunners largely unchanged from the previous month.

The BBC did, however, drop one position to ninth rank, while nypost.com climbed up one spot to rank eighth (143.2 million visits).

CNN was the second-largest website in the US, while third-largest was MSN. Foxnews.com (340.5 million visits) and Google News (165 million visits) rounded out the top five on this measure.

Politico.com (rank 21, 61.4 million visits) and right-wing news site thegatewaypundit.com (rank 37, 28.1 million visits) jumped the most places this month, with both news sites climbing six positions in the ranking.

Fastest-growing among the top 50 as a whole after nytimes.com was cbsnews.com (50.8 million visits, up 73%) followed by entertainment news publisher variety.com (26.1 million visits, up 60%).

Last month’s fastest growing site in the US top 50, the-sun.com, was the eighth-fastest growing site year-on-year in November. The US digital version of the UK tabloid saw visits up 36% year-on-year to 54.1 million.

October 2022

The Sun regained its title as the fastest-growing news website in the US in October while the BBC continued its strong run of growth, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

Of the top ten biggest English-language sites by number of visits, the New York Times maintained its spot as the fastest-growing with 470.8m visits (up 67%), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

It was followed, however, by last month’s third-fastest growing site, the BBC, which grew 30% year-on-year (149.4m visits) to become October's second-fastest growing large site.

It comes as the BBC has ramped up investment in the US in recent months, doubling its editorial staff.

Third fastest-growing among the top ten was Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN.com with 321.9m visits (up 16% year-on-year), while the Washington Post (157m visits, up 12%) and CNBC (113.3m visits, up 8%) rounded out the top five on this measure.

Among the top ten newsbrands by number of visits in October, six recorded year-on-year traffic increases in October, with four recording growth in the double-digits. Fox News meanwhile recorded the largest drop among the top ten (264.5m visits, down 15% year-on-year).

When it comes to the largest site by number of visits, The New York Times retained its spot at the top of a table that remained largely unchanged from last month. The only change in the top ten was CNBC jumping two places to enter in tenth spot, replacing Mail Online.

CNN was again the second-largest website in the US (413m visits, up 1%), while third-largest was MSN.

Newsweek’s site saw the biggest overall drop in rank, falling 12 places to rank 33rd with 32.8m visits, a 34% fall year-on-year.

Among the top 50 as a whole, the Sun’s US edition the-sun.com regained its spot as the fastest-growing news website in the US (51 million visits, up 72% year-on-year).

It was followed by long-running politics blog realclearpolitics.com (21.1m visits, up 70%) and the New York Times.

For the second month in a row the majority (30) of the top 50 news sites saw year-on-year growth in the number of visits than falls. The US midterm elections may be a contributing factor to the increased interest in news.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites which do not fall under news, culture and lifestyle in its definition.

Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and worldwide top 50 English-language news ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.

September 2022

The BBC and the Mail Online were among the top three fastest-growing large newsbrands in the US in September, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.

Of the top ten biggest English-language sites by number of visits, Mail Online was second-fastest growing with 116.8 million visits (an increase of 22% year-on-year), while the BBC was third fastest-growing with 142 million visits (up 21% year-on-year), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

They were however both beaten by the New York Times, which once again was the fastest-growing top ten site in the US (457.3 million visits, up 58%). Since acquiring word game Wordle in the first part of this year, the New York Times has seen a consistent run of audience growth.

September was a better month for US traffic to the larger newsbrands than August, with seven of the ten biggest brands recording year-on-year growth in audience, compared to just four in August. Additionally five newsbrands (New York Times, Mail Online, BBC, New York Post and MSN) recorded double-digit growth.

When it comes to the largest site by number of visits, The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the table. It was followed by CNN (419.7 million visits, up 1%) over which it extended its margin compared to August.

Third-biggest was Microsoft’s aggregator MSN (299.9 million visits, up 11%), fourth-biggest was foxnews.com (258.4 million visits, down 17%) while fifth-biggest was Google News (166.5 million visits, down 6%).

Among the top 50 as a whole, last month’s fastest-growing site, the Sun’s US edition, the-sun.com came in second place for growth this time (44.6 million visits, up 90% year-on-year). Newsletter platform Substack meanwhile was eighth-fastest growing with 21.5 million visits (up 30%).

In a departure from recent months, just over half of news sites (26) saw year-on-year growth in the number of visits. This is possibly linked to a busy US news agenda in recent weeks, with stories such as Hurricane Ian and the slowdown in the global economy likely driving increased interest in news.

August 2022

The Sun’s US edition was the fastest-growing site in the US in August, according to the latest monthly ranking of sites by Press Gazette.

There were 55.3 million visits to the-sun.com, a 150% increase year-on-year, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The UK tabloid launched its US digital edition in 2020 along with a separate US Twitter account which currently counts 9,222 followers. The Sun’s US site has seen steady growth since launch and has risen to twentieth place in our US news ranking.

The-sun.com was also the fastest growing site month-on-month with visits in August up 34% compared to July.

Of the top ten sites by number of visits, just four saw year-on-year growth in August. For the second month in a row, the New York Times, New York Post and Mail Online all saw double-digit growth. Visits to the New York Times were up 52% year-on-year to 468.7 million, while second and third-fastest growing were the New York Post (146.7 million visits, up 26%) and Mail Online (117 million visits, up 14%).

Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN was the only other site in the top ten to grow in August (292.6 million visits, up 6% year-on-year).

The New York Times remains the largest site in the US by number of visits. The legacy publisher has grown in popularity, earlier this year replacing CNN as the most popular digital newsbrand in the country. Its recent growth, as Press Gazette has reported, may in part be due to its acquisition of popular word game Wordle in the first quarter of this year.

The second-biggest site for number of visits was CNN (438.6 million visits, down 5% year-on-year) while in third place was Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News (294.3 million visits, down 10% year-on-year). MSN and Google News round out the top five.

The BBC sites (bbc.co.uk and bbc.com) were the best-ranked British domains among the US top 50 (rank nine, 123.2 million visits). It narrowly beat Mail Online (tenth place).

Like July, August was overall a slow month for growth as just 17 sites of the top 50 saw year-on-year increases in their audience. It’s probable that year-on-year traffic declines for many sites reflect a return to more stable traffic patterns after a surge of interest to news sites in 2020 and 2021.

July 2022

The Mail Online was one of only three top ten sites by number of visits to grow its US audience in July, according to the latest monthly ranking of news websites from Press Gazette.

US visits to dailymail.co.uk were up 15% year-on-year to reach 115.7 million, according to digital intelligence platform Similarweb. It was beaten only by the New York Times (458.7 million visits, up 55%) and New York Post (163.9 million visits, up 41%). As Press Gazette has reported in recent months, the New York Times has seen continued strong audience growth in 2022 which may in part be due to its acquisition of popular word game Wordle in the first quarter of this year.

Yahoo Finance (155.9 million visits, down 14% year-on-year) and Google News (174.3 million visits, down 13%) saw the biggest slumps in growth of the top ten sites.

Among the top 50 as a whole, the fastest growing site was internet culture site dailydot.com (20.2 million visits, up 178%). It was followed by the US website of UK tabloid The Sun (41.1 million visits, up 78%) and news aggregator Newsbreak (19.8 million visits, up 55%).

Mail Online also performed well among the top 50 as a whole, ranking tenth for year-on-year growth in this wider group.

The most popular online news source in the US was the New York Times which earlier this year knocked CNN off its top spot (419.9 million visits, down 6% year-on-year). Third most popular was foxnews.com (286.9 million visits, down 5%), which was followed by Microsoft’s msn.com (275.7 million visits, down 4%), and Google News.

Just 17 sites in the top 50 saw higher traffic this July compared to the same month in 2021. Content analytics firm Chartbeat has said that while news traffic in 2021 was more stable than 2020 where the pandemic and US election pushed readership very high in some months, some 2020 readership gains persisted in 2021. This month’s year-on-year traffic decline may therefore reflect a return to more stable traffic patterns, especially as interest in the Ukraine war has waned.

Update: this article and its charts was amended on 23 August to reflect a revised set of traffic figures received from Similarweb. The visit data for a number of websites mentioned in this article have been changed .

June 2022

The New York Times was again the fastest-growing top ten news site in the US in June, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking.

Visits to the US publisher’s site were up 21% year-on-year to 310.4 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The New York Times Company earlier this month reported that it had added about 180,000 net digital-only subscribers in the second quarter of the year - a slowdown in growth compared to previous quarters. The company’s All Digital Access tier, which includes its games and cooking content, however recorded its highest ever number of new subscribers. The NYT also notably acquired the online game Wordle in February this year.

Microsoft’s news aggregator and portal MSN was the only other top ten site by number of visits to see year-on-year growth in June (340.8 million visits, up 1%).

Other major sites saw traffic fall or stay static. There were 99.4 million visits to nypost.com (no change year-on-year), 105 million to business news site Cnbc.com (down 1%) and 103.3 million to Yahoo News (down 1%).

CNN was once again the biggest news site in the US in June (373 million visits, down 5% year-on-year). It was followed by msn.com, nytimes.com, foxnews.com (240.7 million, down 6%) and Google News (174.8 million, down 10%) in a top five largely unchanged from recent months.

The top-ranked British newsbrand in the US list remains Mail Online although it this month dropped out of the top ten to eleventh spot (99.1 million visits, up 8% year-on-year but down 11% month-on-month). The BBC was ranked twelfth (87.3 million, down 19%) while the Guardian site maintained its rank of 16 (54.3 million visits, down 12% year-on-year).

Among the whole top 50, the fastest growing site was again instapundit.com. Visits to the popular political blog were up more than 2,500 times to 17 million, following a lull in the site’s traffic in the same month last year according to Similarweb’s analytics.

Sportz Bonanza, the fastest growing site worldwide this month, also grew sharply year-on-year in the US with visits up 4,698% to 45.9 million.The independent.co.uk was the ninth-fastest growing with visits up 12% to 16.7 million.

May 2022

The New York Times topped the list for the fastest-growing top ten news site in the US for the third month in a row.

Of the top ten English-language sites in the US by number of visits in May, nytimes.com saw the most year-on-year growth (352.2 million visits, up 36%), according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The publisher, which released its first quarter results in April put much of its growth down to acquisition of viral game Wordle. The New York-based title gained an impressive 301,000 new digital subscribers in the first quarter, although it said this was its slowest gain in over a year.

It was followed by the website of Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, nypost.com which had 119 million visitors in May, an increase of 27% on the same month in 2021.

Website of British mid-market daily, Mail Online, was the third fastest growing site in the US top ten and its performance in May was even better in May than April. Visits to its site were up 21% to 111.9 million (in April it grew 16% year-on-year).

Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN (347.6 million visits, up7%) was the only other top ten site to see more traffic year-on-year.

Among the whole top 50, the fastest growing site was instapundit.com. The long-standing blog by Glen Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, is one of the most popular blogs on the internet. In May, Reynold’s site counted 204.2 million visits (up from a lull in 2021 when visits fell to less than 10,000 in some months according to Similarweb figures).

CNN maintained its position atop the US table as the biggest site in the US in May (393.2 million visits, no change year-on-year). It was followed by nytimes.com, msn.com (347.6 million visits, foxnews.com (248.4 million visits) and Google News (179.4m).

Echoing the global picture, the majority of sites saw more visits in May than April. The BBC was one of just eight sites that saw less traffic in May than the previous month.

The BBC was also one of just three British newsbrands in the top half of the list (100.3 million visits, ranked 12). Best-ranked British newsbrand was ninth-place Mail Online (111.9 million visits, up 21% year-on-year). Theguardian.com, in sixteenth place, had 60.7 million visits, down 3% year-on-year). The Mail Online’s US growth in recent months has moved the site, owned by Lord Rothermere's DMGT up the table where it has replaced the BBC as the only British name in the US top ten. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps.

Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and global top 50 news site ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.

April 2022

While CNN still sits atop the list of biggest websites for US news, the New York Times has continued its strong recent run as the fastest growing major news site in the country for the second month in a row.

Of the top ten English-language sites in the US by number of visits in April, the New York Times site saw the most year-on-year growth with visits up 30% to 355.5m, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The publisher, which released its first quarter results earlier this month, said its acquisition of viral game Wordle had brought "an unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times".

The New York Times was one of a minority of sites in the top 50 that saw more traffic this April compared to the same month last year, echoing the picture in our global top 50 ranking. Only 17 of the top 50 US news sites saw year-on-year traffic gains in April, compared to half of all sites last month .

The NY Times was followed by the site of US tabloid New York Post, which saw the second-highest year-on-year growth in traffic (109.7m visits, up 16%) among the ten most visited sites. It was followed by Mail Online (103.3m visits, also up 16%). Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN (335.1 visits, up 7%) and Yahoo’s news aggregator (103.8m visits, up 5%) were the only other top ten sites with more traffic this April than in April 2021.

As with the global ranking, news sites saw fewer visits from the US in April compared to March as interest in the Ukraine conflict, entering its fourth month, is likely to be waning. Only Atlanta Black Star saw a significant month-on-month increase in traffic (24.6m visits, up 18%.

The black news site (which is placed 38th in the ranking) was also the fastest growing site year-on-year in the top 50 with visits up 74%.

British news sites also did well in April with three UK newsbrands among the ten fastest growing news sites year-on-year in the top 50. The Sun’s US digital edition continued its strong recent audience growth and was the second fastest growing site in the top 50 (17.7m visits, up 67%). Next best-placed UK newsbrand was Mail Online, which was followed by The Independent (181.1m visits, up 16%).

As in March, mainstream newsbrands featured strongly in the top ten sites for year-on-year growth taking seven of the top ten spots.

When it comes to number of visits, Mail Online was the only British site in a US-dominated top ten. The DMGT-owned site, which placed 12th last month, moved up three places in the ranking coming in ninth place in April. In contrast the BBC, which has tended to be the only British name in the top ten, fell down the ranking to twelfth place (101m visits, down 11% year-on-year). Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Leading a top five unchanged from last month, CNN was the biggest site in the US in April (367.5m visits), followed by nytimes.com, msn.com, foxnews.com (229.9m visits) and Google News (170.6m).

In contrast to the UK ranking, a significant number of conservative and right-wing news sites continue to feature in the US top 50. Among them are drudgereport.com (42.1m visits, rank 23), breitbart.com (41m visits, rank 24), thegatewaypundit.com (26.6m visits, rank 36),
newsmax.com (25.2m visits, rank 37), zerohedge.com (22.6m visits, rank 39), theepochtimes.com (20.1m visits, rank 42), and dailywire.com (18.5m visits, rank 44).

March 2022

The New York Times was the fastest growing major news site in the US in March 2022, as mainstream news brands showed strong growth overall.

Of the top ten sites by number of visits in March, the website of the US daily saw the strongest growth with 420.4m visits during the month, an increase of 47% compared to March 2021 according to Similarweb data. The increase is likely in part due to the publisher's acquisition of highly popular word game Wordle. Similarweb data on top search terms for The New York Times' site reveals that Wordle was the most popular organic search term leading to the publisher's site.

Among the bigger publishers, it was followed for growth by Yahoo News (116.3m visits, up 16%), Microsoft news aggregator MSN (365.4m visits, up 12%), the BBC (124.8m visits, up 11%) and Fox News (269.5m visits, up 8%).

In contrast to recent months where the bigger sites have tended to see year-on-year falls in traffic, traffic to mainstream brands was up in March, likely driven by a surge of interest in news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a search for trusted sources of information.

Across the top 50 sites overall, the Sun’s US digital edition maintained its long run of audience growth and was the fastest growing site overall year-on-year (21m visits, 124% growth). The US digital version of the UK tabloid was ranked 43rd overall in terms of number of visits and it has slowly moved up the table in recent months.

The second fastest growing site in the top 50 in March was Reuters.com (44.7m visits, up 60%), followed by nytimes.com, independent.co.uk (23.3m visits, up 47%) and entertainment news site variety.com (20.5m visits, up 45%).

This month, mainstream newsbrands and legacy names featured strongly among the fastest growing sites in the top 50, in a departure from recent months when the fastest growing sites have tended to be entertainment, foreign or more niche news sites.

When it comes to number of visits, CNN was the biggest site in the US in March (465.1m visits). It was followed by nytimes.com, msn.com, foxnews.com and Google News (196.3m visits).

The BBC was the only non-US site among the top ten, ranked in eighth place with 124.8m visits. The Daily Mail’s US site was the best-ranked British newspaper brand (in 12th place with 114.1m visits). Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Half the sites in the top 50 saw more traffic this March compared to the same month last year.

Several conservative and right-wing sites, some of which benefited from traffic bumps during Trump’s tenure, saw audience falls in March. Newsmax.com’s visits were down 10% year-on-year (29m visits), while visits to theepochtimes.com were down 2% (25.4m visits). Thegatewaypundit.com (28.2m visits) and far-right blog zerohedge.com (25.1m visits) however saw traffic increases of 8% and 11% respectively.

January 2022

The Sun's US digital edition continued its recent run of audience growth in January with 94% year-on-year growth in visits.

The UK tabloid launched a US website in January 2020 and since then the site has seen significant growth recording its biggest audience yet this January. There were 21.4m visits to the-sun.com, placing it in 45th place in Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of the top 50 news sites in the US.

Only Atlanta BlackStar (34.2m visits- 128% increase year-on-year) outperformed the UK title for growth, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

Celebrity news publication people.com was the only other site to see double-digit growth (74.6m visits - up 13%).

Among the ten biggest sites by audience size only MSN’s audience grew year-on-year. Microsoft’s news aggregator received 357.8m visits in January, up 1%.

The remainder of the household names saw traffic fall.

US websites will have benefited from large surges in traffic during the pandemic and the US election, with current President Biden taking office last January. Last January also saw the Capitol insurrection in Washington DC. Current traffic, while down year-on-year, is in the case of some big names including CNN and New York Times better this January than compared to the same month in 2019 and 2020 (pre-pandemic).

CNN, the biggest news site in the US, had 401m visits in January (down 42% year-on-year). The second-biggest site by volume of visits was MSN. Third-biggest site nytimes.com received 271.1m visits (down 33%). It was followed by Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News (262.4m visits - down 22%) and Google News (191.3m visits - down 27%). Of the top ten sites with the most visits, Bezos-owned Washington Post saw the biggest fall compared to January 2021 (126.2m visits - down 47%).

Mail Online (104.6m visits - down 5% year-on-year) narrowly beat the BBC (103.1m visits - down 20%) as the top-ranked British site in the US coming in tenth ahead of the UK public broadcaster in 11th place. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Theguardian.com was the only other British publisher in the top half of the ranking, coming in 15th position with 63.4m visits.

December 2021

The Sun's US digital edition was one of the fastest-growing news sites year-on-year in the US in December, recording growth of over 100%.

The UK tabloid's website received 18.3m visits in December - an increase of 111% compared to the same month in 2020, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. It was only outperformed by US title Atlanta Blackstar which increased its traffic by 125% year-on-year (35.8m visits).

The Sun and Atlanta Blackstar were among just seven sites that recorded year-on-year growth in visits as December saw another month of slow news traffic in the US. No other site saw visit growth comparable to the leading two players, with third fastest-growing site people.com seeing visits up 12% to 68.3m.

Only two of the top ten sites by number of visits saw year-on-year growth: MSN.com (359.5m visits - up 3%) and Murdoch-owned New York Post (108.5m visits - an increase of 1%).

Instead six of the ten biggest sites for volume of visits saw double-digit falls in traffic. Visits to the Washington Post website were down 32% to 126.3m, while visits to CNN were down 27% compared to last December at 399.4m.

News sites across the globe benefited from a surge in traffic in 2020 due to both the Covid-19 pandemic and the US presidential election. The effect of the latter is naturally likely to be have been more pronounced in the US. Data shows that traffic to leading US news sites is far below 2020 levels.

CNN retained its position as the number one online news source in the US in terms of visits, although Microsoft's news aggregator MSN is not far behind with 50m fewer visits.

Fox News remained the third most popular site in December (262.2m visits - down 10% year-on-year). Nytimes.com and Google News were the two remaining sites in the top five in a list that remained unchanged from November.

Mail Online was the top-ranked British site in the US coming in at 11th place (102.1m visits − down 4%), this month beating the BBC which had 98.8m visits in December. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.

Fox News is among just 12 sites that saw less traffic in December than November. While year-on-year comparisons reveal most sites did worse for traffic in 2021, most sites did better month-on-month in December.

November 2021

November was generally a slowdown for traffic for the leading US news sites, according to Press Gazette’s latest look at the biggest websites for news sites in America.

Of the top ten sites by number of visits in November, just two saw more traffic this November than in the same month last year. MSN.com had 342.6 million visits - up 1%, while Yahoo! Finance saw 174.1 million visits - an increase of 11%.

The rest saw double-digit falls in traffic compared to last November when many US news sites enjoyed a bumper month for traffic thanks to the country's presidential election.

Of the leading sites, nytimes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic (250.8 million visits - down 51% year-on-year). It was closely followed by CNN (384.1 million visits - down 50%) and washingtonpost.com (116.8 million visits - also down 50%).

Overall, CNN maintained its leading position as the number one news site in the US in terms of visits, according to data from Similarweb. It is however, closely followed by Microsoft's news aggregator MSN, which in recent months has been narrowing the gap on the broadcaster's digital news offering. In November, CNN counted 41.5 million more visits than MSN. In contrast in early 2019 CNN regularly saw almost twice the number of visits as MSN.

Fox News was the third most popular site in November (277 million visits - down 40%). Nytimes.com and Google News round out the list of the top five sites for visits.

No British sites made it into the top sites for volume of visits. The highest ranked British site, the BBC, came in 11th place with 94 million visits. Instead, all the leading sites were homegrown US brands.

After temporarily losing its top spot to The Sun in October, entertainment and lifestyle news site gazillions.com was once again the fastest growing online news site (48.2 million visits - up 581%).

It was followed in second place by Atlanta Black Star (26.4 million visits - an increase of 130%). Last month's fastest growing top 50 site, The-sun.com, came third with 18.5 million visits (a year-on-year increase of 61%). The UK tabloid's digital edition narrowly made it into the top 50 in 48th place.

A number of right-wing and far-right news sites continue to feature in the US top 50 in contrast to the UK list. Best-ranked is breitbart.com (50.7 million visits - 20th place ). Also making the top 50 are right-wing news aggregator drudgereport.com (42.2 million visits - 24th position), thegatewaypundit.com (31.5 million visits - 31st position), newsmax.com (30.2 million visits - 32nd position), zerohedge.com (23.8 million visits - 39th position), and theepochtimes.com (21.3 million visits - 42nd place). All these sites however, saw significant double-digit year-on-year falls in number of visits.

October 2021

UK tabloid The Sun was the fastest-growing news site in the US in October, according to Press Gazette’s latest look at the biggest websites for news sites in America.

• Top 50 most popular news websites in the UK (monthly ranking)
• Top 50 most popular news websites in the world (monthly ranking)

The-sun.com had 18.8 million visits (up 64% year-on-year) - ranking it number 48 in our top 50 list. It was followed in second place by Atlanta Black Star (26.6 million visits - an increase of 57%), according to data from web analytics firm, Similarweb.

Household names, US News (43.9 million visits - up 3%) and Microsoft’s news and app platform, MSN (341.8 million visits - up 2%) were also among the top ten fastest-growing sites.

Among the sites with the biggest falls in traffic compared to last October were politics-focused thehill.com (37.8 million visits - down 73%) and recent Axel Springer acquisition, politico.com (37 million visits - down 65%). Both sites likely benefited from a surge in interest for US election-related news last year, as would have Newsweek.com, the site that recorded the biggest year-on-year drop in October (21.7 million visits - down a staggering 149%).

Looking at the top ten sites for volume of visits, only MSN and Yahoo! Finance saw any year-on-year growth. MSN had 341.8 million visits - up 2%, while visits to Yahoo! Finance were up 7% compared to October 2020 at 164.7 million. The rest of the leading sites saw falls in traffic. The number of people accessing washingtonpost.com was down 53% (115.8 million visits), while the number of visits to cnn.com (364.3 million) was 38% lower than in the same month last year. Like-for-like comparisons will have been affected by the surge in traffic last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the US presidential election.

At the top, CNN continues to lead when it comes to the number of visits racked up by its mobile and desktop sites at 364.3 million. MSN has, however, eaten into CNN’s dominance in recent months. In October, CNN counted just 22.4 million more visits than MSN’s total of 341.8 million. In January 2019 (the earliest date for which we have data), CNN led MSN by a margin of 215.5 million visits. The Microsoft platform has seen its audience grow by over 40% since January 2019. Fox News - once second to CNN - is now the third most popular site in terms of visits (257.2 million visits in October).

The most popular news sites in the US tend to be homegrown. The BBC is the best-ranked international site with its two domains (BBC.com and bbc.co.uk) together counting 96.9 million visits in October.

September 2021

Once again celebrity and entertainment news site Gazillions.com came out on top as the fastest-growing site in the US.

There were 19.5 million visits to the new entertainment site - an increase of 870% - according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb.

It was followed by standardnews.com, which is owned by US-based Spine Media (32 million visits - up 440%).

As seen in previous months, right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits. Third-place theepochtimes.com had 19.6 million visits (up 162%) while there were 29.5 million visits to pro-Trump nexsmax.com (up 144%). Both sites score badly when it comes to website rating tool NewsGuard's trust scores.

The highest-ranked British site for year-on-year growth was The Sun. The UK tabloid's digital edition the-sun.com was the fifth fastest growing news site in the US counting 16 million visits - a year-on-year increase of 65%.

Recent Axel Springer acquisition Politico.com saw the largest year-on-year fall in traffic (37.8 million visits - down 42%). As in recent months, theatlantic.com has also seen year-on-year traffic declines (22.7 million visits - down 40%) while visits to politics-focused thehill.com were down 39% to 38.3 million. Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, standardnews.com came out on top with an increase of 293% on the number of visits in August. Only four other sites (theverge.com, usmagazine.com, cbsnews.com and the-sun.com) saw monthly traffic growth although of far less proportions.

The website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall and enjoys a similar position of dominance as the BBC in the UK. Cnn.com was the most visited site in September with 378.7 million visits. It was followed by MSN.com (329.3 million visits), foxnews.com (266.3 million) and nytimes.com (252.7 million visits). Press Gazette has ranked MSN and Yahoo! News for the first time this month.

The BBC’s sites was the only British site in the top ten when it came to volume of visits. Similarweb analytics however include visits to BBC’s main homepage - not just its news page.

As in previous months, only a minority (15 in September) of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases.

August 2021

Celebrity and entertainment news site Gazillions.com was again the fastest-growing site in the US, according to Press Gazette’s analysis of traffic to the most popular English-language news websites.

Right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits.

Gazillions.com, which launched at the end of 2019, was the single fastest-growing site according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb. In the year to August 2021 visits were up more than 1,262% (a more than 10-fold increase) from 2.1 million in August 2020 to 29.2 million in August 2021 as the new site picked up audience.

It was followed in second place by theepochtimes.com (21.1 million visits - up 186%) and pro-Trump nexsmax.com (33.1 million visits - up 166%). Both sites have regularly appeared among the leading five sites for year-on-year growth in our ranking and their growth reflects the increasing audience to many right-leaning sites in recent years.

The US digital edition of British tabloid The Sun also stayed in the top five for another month. There were 15.9 million visits (an increase of 38%) to the-sun.com.

At the foot of the list, sites that saw large year-on-year falls in traffic included forbes.com (56.1 million visits - down 38%), politico.com (46.1 million visits - down 36%), cbsnews.com (25.7 million visits - down 36%) and thehill.com (45 million visits - down 33%). Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, gazillions.com also came out on top with an increase of 65% on the number of visits in July. Reuters.com also performed well with 32.9 million visits (an increase of 14%) as did atlantablackstar.com which specialises in news and culture aimed at a black audience (25.3 million visits in August -up 14%).

The website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in June with 423.5 million visits. This was followed by foxnews.com (284.9 million visits). and nytimes.com (271.1 million visits).

The BBC’s sites and Mail Online were the two British sites in the top ten for volume of visits. Similarweb analytics however include visits to BBC’s main homepage - not just its news page.

As in previous months, only a minority (12 in August) of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. Unlike recent months however, mainstream news sites featured in the list this time with the-sun.com, apnews.com, usnews.com, finance.yahoo.com, wsj.com, newsweek.com and reuters.com recording year-on-year growth.

July 2021

For the second month in a row, recently launched celebrity and lifestyle site Gazillions.com was the fastest growing site in the US, while right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits.

Gazillions.com which brands itself as news focused on “pop culture, luxurious lifestyle, and global entertainment” was the single fastest-growing site according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb. In the year to July 2021. Visits were up more than 542% (over 5 times) from 692,361 in June 2020 to 2.8 million in July 2021.

It was followed in second place by theepochtimes.com (23.5 million visits - up 72%) and pro-Trump nexsmax.com (33.5 million visits - up 165%). Both sites were among the leading five sites for year-on-year growth in June’s ranking. Their growth reflects a surge in visits to right-leaning sites as a whole over the last year.

This month, the US digital edition of British tabloid The Sun, also entered the top five. The-sun.com racked up 18.1 million visits (up 54%), putting it in fifth place for year-on-year growth in visits although it came in at 47 out of 50 for volume of visits.

At the foot of the list, the BBC’s digital properties BBC.com and BBC.co.uk saw the biggest relative year-on-year fall in traffic with visits down 18% to 108.2 million - although BBC sites did well in terms of overall number of visits, coming in at six out of 50). Other sites that saw large falls in traffic compared to July 2020 were Forbes.com (visits decreased by 46% to 53.2 million) and political news site the hill.com (visits were down by 39% to 43 million). Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, atlantablackstar which specialises in news and culture aimed at a black audience was the fastest-growing site in July 2021 compared to June 2021. The site which takes an African American perspective on politics racked up 22.2 million visits in July (up 16%). The-sun.com also did well in terms of month-on-month growth with visits up 29% to 18.1 million. Gazillions.com, despite showing strong year-on-year growth saw a huge month-on-month traffic fall in July. There were 52% fewer visits to the site in July than June.

Despite the growth of some smaller players, the website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in June with 411.7 million visits. This was followed by foxnews.com (274.2 million visits). and nytimes.com (261.4 million visits), which have in previous months jostled for second and third places. The sites of two British publishers also made it into the top 10 leading sites for volume of visits. BBC.co.uk and BBC.com racked up 108.2 million visits, while there were 97.5 million visits to dailymail.co.uk.

There were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites in July this year compared to the same month in 2020. The leading 50 sites this month counted a combined 3.1 billion visits - a decrease of 19% compared to the combined 3.9 million visits to the leading 50 sites in July 2020. As was the case in June, only 10 of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. Most of these were niche sites catering to specialist audiences or sites with a strong conservative or right-wing bias.

June 2021

Recently launched celebrity and lifestyle site Gazillions.com was the fastest growing site in the US in June with right-leaning news sites also making strong showings.

Gazillions.com, which launched in late 2019, was the number one fastest growing site, according to data from web analytics company Similarweb. Visits were up over 5,000% (a more than 50-fold increase) from 692,361 in June 2020 to 37.1m in June 2021.

The rest of the top five sites for year-on-year growth were right-leaning sites that have seen considerable traffic increases in recent years.

The second fastest growing site, pro-Trump Newsmax, saw visits increase by 196% to 31.7m, while visits to next in place theepochtimes.com were up 186% to 22.5m. Alternative video news platform bitchute.com saw a 109% increase in audience to 20.9m, while visits to the fifth fastest growing site, thegatewaypundit.com, increased to 33.4m – up 61%.

At the foot of the list, mainstream sites featured heavily among the outlets with the biggest year-on-year falls in traffic. Forbes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic as visits decreased by 46% to 51.6m. Meanwhile, visits to The Atlantic’s site were down by 44% to 21m and visits to cbsnews.com were down by 43% to 26.3m.

Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the huge traffic to coronavirus-related content a year ago.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, Gazillions.com again came out on top. Visits to the site were 141% higher than in May, when there were 15.3m visits. Tech news site theverge.com also saw more traffic in June with visits up 18% compared with 27.5m visits the previous month.

Thegatewaypundit.com was the only other site that saw a more than 10% traffic increase compared with May.

Despite the growth of some smaller players, the website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. CNN.com was the most visited site in June with 392.5m visits. This was followed by nytimes.com (257.5m visits) and foxnews.com (257.3m visits), which has significantly narrowed the gap on the site of the New York Times.

UK sites BBC.co.uk and BBC.com also made it into the top 10 with 108.1m visits, as did dailymail.co.uk with 92m visits in June.

While CNN.com regularly tops US lists for number of visits, its lead over its closest competitors is smaller than the BBC’s relative lead over competing news sources in the UK, according to our analysis.

Taken as whole, there were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites this month compared with June 2020. June’s leading 50 sites counted a combined 3.1bn visits compared with 3.8bn visits in the same month last year (a decrease of 16%).

Only ten of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. These were gazillions.com, newsmax.com, theepochtimes.com, bitchute.com, thegatewaypundit.com, usnews.com, finance.yahoo.com, apnews.com, people.com and usmagazine.com.

All 50 sites combined, however, saw slightly more traffic in June (3.09m visits) compared with May (3.06m) – although the increase in visits is less than 1%.

April 2021

Right-wing news sites saw the biggest year-on-year growth in the US in April.

The Epoch Times was the single fastest growing site according to data from web analytics company Similarweb. Visits to another pro-Trump site, Newsmax, increased by 171% to 29.4m, while visits to right-wing video platform BitChute were up 150% to 19.3m.

Also in the top five for year-on-year growth was far-right site thegatewaypundit.com, whose founder and editor-in-chief, Jim Hoft, was permanently suspended from Twitter in February for sharing false news about the US election. The site saw visits increase by 41% to 25.5m.

Among the sites with the biggest year-on-year falls in traffic were several mainstream national news brands and business titles. Forbes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic as visits decreased by 54% to 53.2m. Meanwhile, visits to The Atlantic’s site were down by 52% to 21m and visits to newsweek.com were down by 50% to 22.7m. Like for like comparisons will be impacted by the huge traffic to coronavirus-related content a year ago.

When it comes to monthly growth in visits, investigative tabloid RawStory came out on top. Visits to the site were 4% higher at 17.7m in April. The New York Post and the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Wire also saw small traffic increases of 1%.

The website of cable broadcaster CNN has by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in April with 410.9m visits. This was followed by nytimes.com (273.9m visits) and foxnews.com (244.1m visits). British sites BBC.co.uk and BBC.com also made it into the top 10 with 113.1m visits, as did dailymail.co.uk with 89.1m visits in April.

Taken as whole, there were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites that month compared with April 2020. The current top 50 sites racked up a combined 3bn visits in April compared with 4.1bn visits in the same month last year. The only sites among the top 50 that saw year-on-year traffic increases were theepochtimes.com, newsmax.com, bitchute.com, usmagazine.com, thegatewaypundit.com, apnews.com, usnews.com, startribune.com and people.com.

Compared with last month, there were 7% fewer visits to the leading 50 sites combined in April (3.1bn compared with 3.3bn in March).

Note: Press Gazette will be updating this page on a monthly basis. See our previous coverage here:

Biggest news websites in the world archive data

• March 2021: Top 50 news websites in the world for March 2021: Times and Telegraph two fastest growers
• February 2021: Top 50 largest news websites in the world: Sputnik, Drudge and Fox see biggest traffic falls in February
• December 2020: Top 50 largest news websites in the world: Surge in traffic to Epoch Times and other right-wing sites
• November 2020: Top 50 largest news websites in the world revealed: Controversial pro-Trump sites were fastest-growing in US election month

Related Article: Top 50 biggest news websites in the world: September slump for ten biggest names

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The New York Times will this month begin drawing its popular podcasts behind its online subscriptions barrier.

Listeners will be able to pass through the paywall if they have a New York Times news, All Access or NYT Audio login. And for the first time it will also be possible to purchase an audio-only subscription directly through third-party hosting platforms.

New York Times head of subscription growth Ben Cotton told Press Gazette the launch hopes to find revenue in previously untapped audiences – and lure new subscribers into its All Access bundle.

“What we’ve seen is that we have millions of listeners who continue to engage with us exclusively on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or another third-party platform,” Cotton said.

“We see it as a natural evolution to extend subscription rules and offerings that we started to put in place on our own products to third-party platforms.”

The New York Times already has its own paywalled audio app, NYT Audio, which is accessible to anyone with an All Access or news subscription. A standalone subscription to NYT Audio is also available, Cotton said, but “it’s not something we’ve emphasised”.

Anyone with a standalone NYT Audio subscription can use it to pass the Spotify and Apple Podcasts paywalls, and likewise anyone who buys a sub through the third-party platforms can use those same credentials for NYT Audio. Access through either route will cost $6 a month or $50 for a year.

To some extent, Cotton said, the new paywall will be a leap in the dark.

“People who are listening on other platforms – they are not authenticated with The New York Times in any way on those platforms, and so we don’t really have any way of knowing for sure how many of them are subscribers already. We expect there’s a meaningful number who are. And that’s not the goal of this program, but one interesting thing we will learn is how many of those people are already subscribers.”

He would not go into details on how many subscribers the NYT was targeting with the new paywall, but said: “We do have ambitious goals about the growth of new subscribers we’ll get from this… We expect to start and then be able to build over time.”

What will be inside and outside the paywall?

The paywall, which does not yet have a public launch date, will not cover all NYT audio output. For always-on podcasts like flagship NYT news show The Daily or lifestyle feature Modern Love, the two or three most recent episodes will remain open to the non-paying public.

Similarly for old seasons of longform narrative podcasts like those made by Serial Productions, the first few episodes will be available outside the paywall as tasters. Each episode from new seasons, on the other hand, will be made available to subscribers earlier than non-subscribers, in an approach similar to that of audio-first newsroom Tortoise. Other enticements may include subscriber-only episodes across the portfolio.

New podcasts will not be paywalled, Cotton said, because they need “a chance to build up an audience”.

None of the above were strict rules, he added: “I’m trying to emphasise as much as I can that we expect that to be flexible – not because we’re not sure what to do, but because we naturally expect that we will learn things once we launch this and we’ll evolve.”

NYT podcast subscription priced to ‘incentivise anybody who is interested in the bundle to give it a shot’

Cotton said podcasts are “quite important” as a funnel for getting new people into the NYT ecosystem.

“In some ways it’s one of our biggest bets and best opportunities for reaching new audiences that we might not be reaching in other ways.

“To some extent, that’s part of the job of each of the products in our portfolio – not just audio, but Games or Cooking or The Athletic…

“A critical part of that is having a subscription offering that speaks just to where they are right now, and if we require somebody to pay for all of The New York Times just to get access to the podcast they’re really passionate about now, we know that some people might not do that.”

[Read more: How games are powering online subscriptions at The New York Times]

There is a caveat there, however: canny prospective NYT podcast subscribers may notice that the monthly subscription price is 50% higher than the $4 a month it costs for a promotional (i.e. temporary) New York Times “All Access” sub, which grants access not only to the audio product but news on nytimes.com, Games, Cooking, The Athletic and consumer advice service Wirecutter.

Press Gazette has reported before that the Times has been aggressively pushing its All Access bundle, which returns higher average revenue per user than a single-product subscription, through discounted offers that make it cheaper to buy the bundle than a sub to, for example, news or Games.

Asked whether the audio paywall was intended as a new route to guide people into the bundle, Cotton said that was “consistent with what we do on Games or Cooking or The Athletic or anywhere else that we sell an individual, standalone subscription offering.

“We have seen, more broadly, that the low introductory rate for All Access – that gives you a chance to come in at a low price and engage and sample across the bundle for a meaningful period of time – makes it much more likely that you will stick with us and will stick with us even when we raise your price up.

“So we do do that intentionally to try to incentivise anybody who is interested in the bundle to give it a shot. We’ve had success doing that on our other products, too, and I expect we can do that here.

“But we expect, as I was saying earlier, that some people will just be interested in continuing to listen to that podcast that they don’t have full access to anymore, or those few shows that they’re interested in, and so we we’ll give them a chance to start there and then hopefully upgrade to the full bundle over time…

“At first, the goal is just to make this program successful – that second part only comes if we get a lot of people subscribed to the audio to begin with.”

Why is the New York Times podcast paywall launching now?

The Times is introducing the paywall now partially because its audio product is mature enough, Cotton said: “We have a fair amount of experience launching other subscription businesses, and what we look for is to try to build out an offering that can find an audience and then can deeply engage an audience.

“And once we’ve built up a deeply engaged audience and feel like we have made something that we’ve proven, that is strong enough that people will be willing to pay for, we want to actually go ahead and do that.”

But he added it was also happening now because “these particular platforms have made meaningful advancements in the way that their technology for people who want to sell subscriptions works. They’re in a much better place than when we might have talked about this a year or two or three ago.”

Relatively frictionless podcast paywalls are a recent development. The Economist, an early mover in the area, launched its podcast-only subscription offering in September 2023, a little over a year after telling Press Gazette it was mulling the move. Podcast business Acast launched its technology integrating publisher paywalls with Apple Podcasts in June last year.

“We have a pretty high bar when we introduce a subscription offering anywhere for wanting that to feel like a seamless and high quality experience for our potential customers,” Cotton said. “We feel like the offerings on Apple Podcasts and Spotify meet that bar now.”

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Many leading UK news publishers saw a bump in website traffic during the Paris Olympics, data from digital market intelligence company Similarweb shows.

US sites meanwhile saw a drop in visits compared to the previous fortnight, likely because the weeks before the event saw the Donald Trump assassination attempt and news Joe Biden was standing down as president.

But in both the US and UK the year-on-year traffic trends were strongly up and publishers reported far more interest in the Paris games than the covid-impacted 2021 Tokyo event.

Among top UK news sites, the publishers that saw the largest bump over the 18-day Olympic period this year were the BBC (visits up 5% on the 18 days immediately before), The Independent (10%) and the Birmingham Mail (12%).

Publishers say they saw as much as double their 2021 traffic for 2024 Olympics

Mail Sport said it received double the average daily page views at the 2024 Olympics versus Tokyo, which had been scheduled for summer 2020 but was postponed because of the Covid pandemic and took place without spectators.

The Sun, similarly, told Press Gazette it saw 70% higher site traffic on Olympic articles this summer, and The Guardian’s total page views were 44% higher than during the Tokyo Olympics and 52% higher than Rio de Janeiro’s. Daily page views were “up every single day except one compared to previous Games”, a spokesperson for The Guardian said.

Independent editor Geordie Greig said in a statement that site traffic was “33% higher than forecast” over the Paris Olympics and that the title’s reporting on Imane Khelif, a female boxer subjected to online backlash over her gender, “generated 20% of our overall Games traffic”.

“Gymnast Simone Biles, sprinter Noah Lyles and British tennis hero Andy Murray also captured our readers’ imagination,” he said, “with millions of people reading our industry-leading commentary from our correspondents in Paris.”

Mail Sport said it saw more than 100 million page views on Olympic-specific stories. The publisher added that it saw its third-most daily page views in the last four years on Tuesday 6 August, a day that featured the finals of the men’s 1,500 metre and the women’s 200m runs.

The Guardian said the fourth day of the games, 30 July, saw its greatest traffic, “with Simone Biles and the USA winning gold in the gymnastics team final, while other top stories included the Guardian’s medals table, the opening ceremony live blog and news stories on Imane Khelif, ‘floating surfer’ Gabriel Medina and Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification”.

A spokesperson for The New York Times Company said its sports title The Athletic saw “two of our ten biggest weeks” ever during the Paris Olympics.

The Washington Post, similarly, said the three weeks of the games “were among The Washington Post’s top five weeks of the year in terms of reach, across site, app and off-platform”.

The title’s most-read reporting included live event coverage and “pieces reporting on issues in the spotlight”, including the backlash against Khelif.

A spokesperson for the publication said an animated Instagram post about gymnastics moves originated by and named for Simone Biles “had a reach of 8.5 million and was a great example of our unique coverage that went beyond the medal counts”

Sun head of digital sport says Olympic traffic no longer driven by social media

Alex Peake, The Sun’s head of digital sport, told Press Gazette there was “much more of an even split” in where that traffic was coming this year when compared with in previous Olympics.

“Direct traffic was up, search traffic was up, and it’s just a bit more of a balanced picture as opposed to what it was three years ago when Facebook was nearly 50% of the page views we drove during Tokyo,” he said.

“The Olympics, I suppose, is different to pretty much everything else we cover. When you look at the sports we do day in, day out, like football or boxing, everything follows a pattern.

“The great thing about the Olympics, which makes it quite special to cover, is the fact that a lot of the people we’re writing about, we don’t know anything about, that we’ve probably never heard of them before.”

Press Gazette looked at daily traffic over the period for the top 20 publishers on Press Gazette’s June rankings of the most-visited news sites in the US and the UK. (Daily traffic data was not available for certain sites: in the UK, ITV, Money Saving Expert, The Times, Healthline, Global, GB News and the Daily Record, and in the US USA Today, Forbes, CNBC, Newsweek and The Guardian.)

[Read more: Advertising blocklists unfairly targeted coverage from Olympics and Euros]

In the US, meanwhile, only two top-20 sites — news.yahoo.com and people.com — saw more traffic over the Olympics than the weeks leading into the games.

However, most news sites analysed by Press Gazette did see US traffic growth when compared against the same set of dates last year. Fox News, The New York Times, CBS News, NBC News, CNN and BBC.com all saw growth of between ten and 20%, while People.com saw a 46% rise in traffic and the Associated Press 63%.

The same was true in the UK, where four sites — Sky News, The Telegraph, Metro and the Birmingham Mail — all saw average daily page view growth of at least 30%. The Birmingham Mail saw an increase of 72% on last year.

Top stories in search during the Olympics

Similarweb also carried out an analysis for Press Gazette looking at which news publishers performed well on Google searches for the words "Olympic", "Olympics" and the names of various gold medal winners.

Among the winners on search in the US were Yahoo.com (1.35 million search clicks), USA Today (1.3 million) and NBC News (1.2 million).

In the UK Mail Online secured the most Olympic search traffic, with 644,010 domain clicks. It was followed by The Guardian (462,450) and the BBC (395,110).

The data also reveal the top-ranked URL for each site in the analysis, showing which stories did best on search.

In the UK, the top article at half of the 16 domains assessed covered Imane Khelif or Lin Yu-ting, another boxer whose gender became a focus of abuse online. Other well-performing stories covered the men's tennis finals and a red card for Brazil's all-time leading women's goalscorer. In the US only four of the top stories at the the 18 domains analysed concerned Khelif or Lin: other successful coverage recapped the opening ceremony, covered gymnast Simone Biles or simply tracked the US medal count.

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Press Gazette has ranked the biggest UK and US news publishers on Instagram with four achieving follower-counts above ten million.

We looked at the news publishers from our top 50 UK and US website rankings to compile our new research.

Two publishers – BBC News (27.8 million) and CNN (20 million) – are above the 20 million mark. When Press Gazette last ranked publisher Instagram accounts (in June 2023) BBC News had 7.4m followers on the platform and CNN 4.2m.

The top two on Instagram are followed by the New York Times (18.2 million) and People (13.6 million).

In comparison, only one news publisher (Daily Mail) from the two top 50 lists has topped ten million on Tiktok, the newer platform.

Ladbible does not feature in the latest ranking because it has it has fallen out of the list of the top 50 news websites in the UK. It currently has 14.1 million followers to its biggest Instagram account. Cosmopolitan, The Daily Wire, The Verge, NME, Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit similarly have fallen out of our top 50s so do not eapp

Excluding the impact of Ladbible’s removal, the top seven remain the same – but The Guardian (5.8 million followers) in eighth place has overtaken Buzzfeed and Unilad (both 5.7 million).

The fastest-growing Instagram account over a two-year period was the New York Post, increasing by 74.7% since 2022 to 1.2 million.

It was followed by Healthline Media (up 60% since 2022 to 1.3 million) and UK tabloid the Mirror (up 57% to 441,000).

Four news publishers on our list saw their Instagram followings decline since June 2023: Buzzfeed (down 7%), sister publication Huffpost (3% to 3.2 million), Unilad (down 2%) and The Daily Beast (down 2% to 452,000).

Since June 2023 only, the Mirror was the fastest-growing (up 45%) followed by ITV News (up 34% to 512,000) and the New York Post (up 32%).

But the follower count for BBC News increased the most in absolute terms (2.1 million) since last year - almost double the next largest growth seen by Fox News (up 1.2 million to 9.4 million).

Four added at least one million followers to their counts - also including the New York Times and People.

The percentage of people saying they use Instagram for news has risen from 2% in 2014 to 15% this year in 12 key markets surveyed by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (UK, US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Ireland.

It remains behind Facebook, Youtube and Whatsapp in importance but has overtaken Twitter/X and is still ahead of Tiktok and Snapchat.

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