Traffic Falls At Most Conservative Websites

Foxnews.com registered its eighth month this year of increased year-over-year (YOY) unique visitors. According to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of mobile and desktop traffic based on Comscore data for September 2023, 75% of the right wing news websites in TheRighting’s top 20 suffered YOY declines in unique visitors.

Fox News drew 78.6 milllion unique visitors, up 7% compared to September 2022 when it attracted only 73.7 million. Not only was Fox News by far the highest-ranked right wing news website, it garnered more unique visitors than the website of the New York Times for the fourth time this year.

Among the major mainstream news websites TheRighting follows, unique visitors to the New York Times brand sank to 73.1 million, a drop of 19%. The Washington Post also experienced a 19% decline in YOY unique visitors. CNN.com, which generated the most visitors of any news website tracked by TheRighting, had 118.6 million visitors in September, but still fell 3% compared to September 2022.

“The depressed traffic numbers for many news websites in September reflect a relatively stable news environment last month that had few ground-shaking events,” said Howard Polskin, President, TheRighting. “Despite all the noise it generated, Rep. Lauren Boebert’s friskiness with her date in a Denver theater on September 10 does not qualify as major news that will drive eyeballs consistently to news websites.”

 

Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform also faltered in September. YOY unique visitors dropped 24%, its largest percentage decrease ever.

 

Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Right Wing News Websites for September 2023 (by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)

Winners

• Infowars (+30%)
• Daily Signal (+25%)
• Daily Caller (+13%)

Losers

• PJ Media (-68%)
• Twitchy (-57%)
• Gateway Pundit (-40%)

The Truth About Truth Social

Here are the September 2023 unique visitors for the three conservative-friendly social media platforms TheRighting follows:

• Rumble (7,621,000; -9% vs year ago)
• Truth Social (2,556; -24% vs year ago)
• Gettr (210,000; -69% vs year ago)

Each month, TheRighting examines Comscore data on dozens of prominent right wing websites that post original content. TheRighting ranks the top 20 right wing websites on the basis of unique visitors and also provides data on whether unique visitors have increased or decreased year-over-year.

Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-defined list, including, but not limited to Foxnews.com, Breitbart.com, DailyCaller.com, WashingtonExaminer.com, WesternJournal.com, Washingtontimes.com, Total Digital Audience, September 2023, U.S.