CNN Website Closing In on NYTimes For Top Spot

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%).

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.