Most of the right-wing media ecosystem registered declines in
its website traffic for the month of December, and 14 of the top 20 sites declined by double digits, according to analysis by TheRighting, a site that tracks the activities of this media segment.
Each month, TheRighting examines Comscore data on dozens of prominent conservative websites that post original content. TheRighting ranks the top 20 conservative websites on the basis of unique
visitors and also provides data on whether unique visitors have increased or decreased year-over-year.
Four right-wing sites bucked the trend and reported traffic increases for
December, as compared to the prior-year December. They were Daily Signal (+66%), NewsBusters (+57%), Daily Wire (+17%), and Townhall (+10%).
But the big story for December were the
declines. Among them:
- Bongino.com (-74%)
- CNS News (-66%)
- Washington Examiner (-56%)
- Breitbart (-52%)
- The Federalist (-49)
- Gateway
Pundit (-45%)
- Newsmax (-36%)
- Washington Times (-33%)
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Other decliners included WND, TheBlaze, RedState, Western Journal, and Fox News. See the full list here.
The December performance for these websites
track with a larger trend across all media in 2021, which
is that the “Trump Bump,” turned into a “Trump Slump” after the former president exhausted his attempts to overturn the election and left office on January 20, 2021.
For example, in December 2021, CNN declined by 27% compared to the prior year. The Washington Post declined by
32%, HuffPost declined by 24%, and the New York Times declined by 22%.
Foxnews.com, TheRighting noted, remained the most popular conservative website, with more than 79 million unique
visitors in December. However, traffic sagged by 10%, making it 13 consecutive months with declining YOY audience.
And at DonaldJTrump.com, where the former president posts statements and
proclamations, raises money, sells merchandise, and links to stories that disparage his opponents, traffic dropped by 69%. Since TheRighting began tracking traffic to the Trump website in April
2021, it has never increased its audience.
Social Media
Three conservative-friendly social networks TheRighting follows all also suffered significant audience
declines. Parler had the largest drop, making it the seventh straight month of decreasing visitors. Gettr, the platform founded by former Trump aide Jason Miller, added 400,000 unique visitors
from November to December. Gettr now has more unique visitors than Parler.
December traffic numbers for right-wing social platforms:
- Rumble (8,221,000; -25% vs year
ago)
- Mewe (1,244,000; -60% vs year ago)
- Gettr (1,027,000; year-ago data NA)
- Parler (792,000; -91% vs year ago)
TheRighting, dedicated to
informing middle-of-the-road and liberal audiences about the activities of conservative media, was founded in 2017 by the veteran journalist Howard Polskin.