Meda coupe: Druge poised to overtake CNN
Cheryl Chumley
A report that looks at where online news readers go for their daily scoops shows Matt Drudge, who operates the popular headline aggregation site that’s a must-read for many of both political camps, is gaining big on massive media organizations like NBC and even CNN.
The latter, specifically, might want to take notice. CNN has spent the last few years loudly proclaiming its dominance in the news market, even as competitors like Fox News – and now, Drudge – have gained steam.
MediaPost, in its “10 Publishers Account for Half of All Online News,” cited SimilarWeb and found “the top 10 publishers, together owning around 60 news sites, account for 47 percent of total online traffic to news content last year, with the next biggest 140 publishers accounting for most of the other half.”
And what are those big name sites?
MSN, which owns MSN.com, drew the largest share of news readers, with 27 billion combined page views last year, on both mobile and desktop devices. Disney Media Networks, owner of ESPN and ABC News, came in second with 25.9 billion page views.
The numbers dramatically dropped from there.
image: http://mobile.wnd.com/files/2014/05/drudge-report-lewinsky-screenshot-2014-0506.jpg
Time Warner, owner of CNN and the sports-based Bleacher Report, came in with 14.8 billion; Yahoo, with 10.3 billion; and Time, Inc., with 10.2 billion.
This is where Drudge and his famous Drudge Report enter.
Time Warner, which has boasted top-ranked status as a go-to news source for more than a decade, is still beating Drudge on page views by about 5 billion – but that’s somewhat of a comparison of apples to oranges, of a company with several products versus an individual with a single, solitary site.
But look at CNN versus Drudge, and the comparison is a bit fairer.
CNN Network, across all its various channels – from entertainment to global news – averaged about 1.9 billion monthly page views in 2013, CNN reported. And as another glimpse, in August 2015, CNN touted 1.7 billion views from both desktop and mobile readers.
Still, as Politico reported in mid-2015: “The Drudge Report is the leading source of referral traffic … for many of the top news organizations in the country … In 2014, DrudgeReport.com was the No. 1 site of referral traffic to the Daily Mail, CNN, Fox News, Roll Call, Breitbart, The New York Times, National Journal, USA Today, Associated Press, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and Politico, Intermarkets found. Another unique aspect for Drudge is that 87 percent of its own traffic is from readers going directly to DrudgeReport.com and staying there for an average of 30 minutes.”
In other words, CNN and other news sites wouldn’t have the high page view numbers they have were it not for Drudge.
But that’s not all.
CBS Corp., owner of Cnet.com, and NBC Universal, two of America’s long-standing mainstream media organizations, had 8.8 billion and 9.5 billion page views, respectively. But Drudge had 8.5 billion, and compared to CBS and NBC, which own more than one product, he only has the single site.
But again, the Drudge site actually redirects readers to other news sites, so some of the page views for CBS, NBC and others on the MediaPost list no doubt collected some of their page hits via the Drudge Report window.
Rounding out the list were Advance Publications with 8 billion and Fox Entertainment Group, which owns Fox News, at 7.9 billion.
“Turning to specific publications, MSN.com accounted for all of MSN’s traffic, again with 27 billion page views,” MediaPost said, :followed by ESPN.go.com, with 23 billion; CNN.com with 8.8 billion; [and then] Drudge Report, accounting for all of Matt Drudge’s traffic at 8.5 billion.”
BuzzFeed.com came in next, with 6.8 billion page views, followed by Foxnews.com, at 6.9 billion; NYTimes.com, 6.3 billion; News.yahoo.com, 6 billion; Cnet.com, 5.2 billion; and Huffingtonpost.com, 4.3 billion.
Read more at http://mobile.wnd.com/2016/01/media-coup-drudge-poised-to-overtake-cnn/#rFikkQCCRobwCpvD.99