Top Conservative News Sites Experience Audience Erosion Leading Up To Election


In what should have been a period of intense audience interest for major conservative news sites -- the October lead-in to the 2020 presidential election -- many of the biggest experienced significant audience erosion vs. October 2019, according to an analysis of Comscore data by TheRighting.

“The traffic numbers for several prominent conservative websites were surprisingly soft in October,” explains Howard Polskin, president and chief curator at TheRighting, adding: “I was expecting a big surge in traffic in the weeks leading up to one of the most consequential and controversial presidential elections in U.S. history.

"I based these assumptions on the dramatic events that dominated the October news cycle including President Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization, the Supreme Court hearings, the Biden and Trump town halls, and the final presidential debate.  The weaker-than-expected audience numbers suggest fatigue among right-wing news consumers when it came to the latest developments in the election and the battle against the pandemic.” 

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Despite this backdrop, six of the most prominent conservative news sites failed to grow their audience in October, including the Daily Caller (-27%), the Washington Times (-18%), "Rush Limbaugh" (-14%), the Daily Wire (-8%), Newsmax (-4%), and Fox News (0%).

1 comment about "Top Conservative News Sites Experience Audience Erosion Leading Up To Election".
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  1. Kevin Killion from Stone House Systems, Inc., November 30, 2020 at 2:29 p.m.

    Interesting data, but the verbiage supplied by the left-wing site "The Righting" was way out of sync even with their own table that they supply on their website (https://www.therighting.com/october-2020-top-20-traffic-to-conservative-websites) and which you show in this article.  Take a close look at that table!!!!  Yes, there were declines in unique visitors to five -- count 'em, 5 -- of the listed websites (several of which are mostly pay sites), but 14 other sites had big, even HUGE, increases, such as:


    The Blaze +48%


    Washington Times +48%


    Breitbart +59%


    National Review +24%


    Western Journal +68%


    Gateway Pundit +202%


    Federalist +211%


    PJ Media +291%


    Bongino +1,101%


    Townhall +85%


    CNS +187%


    RedState +48%


    Hannity +35%


    That's from THEIR table!  In other words, these sites garnered fresh eyes (new unique visitors) during a period of big political news. This is EXACTLY what one would expect.


    Of course, a huge consideration, especially for advertisers, is overall viewing, not just cume unique viewers.  It doesn't appear that The Rightist wants to talk about that.  Nor does The Rightest seem to have interest in showing corresponding results for leftward websites.

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