Fox News and CNN are locked in a battle for the top spot in digital news. Comscore data from the second quarter of 2021 reveals CNN had the most unique multiplatform visitors — extending its five-year streak — while Fox News led the way in total multiplatform views and minutes.
Overall for the quarter, CNN pulled in 131.6 million total average unique visitors per month while Fox News Digital napped 86 million, on average. The race was closer in multiplatform total minutes, where Fox News Digital averaged 9.9 billion for the quarter and CNN averaged 8 billion. In total views for the quarter, Fox News Digital barely edged CNN with 4.7 billion across platforms compared to 4.6 billion for CNN.
Notably, both companies saw declines year over year, just as their television counterparts did. In multiplatform total minutes for the quarter, Fox News Digital was down 26% and CNN saw a decline of 47%. Fox News Digital also lost 18% of its average multiplatform total views compared to Q2 2020 while CNN lost 42%. In multiplatform average monthly uniques, Fox News Digital’s decline was 26% year over year while CNN’s was 19%.
Those declines are in keeping with cable ratings trends, which are down for all the major networks in the year after a global pandemic, a contentious election, and President Joe Biden’s move into the White House.
In June alone, CNN saw 128 million multiplatform unique visitors and Fox News saw 80 million. The New York Times brand was right behind Fox News with 79 million and then came NBC News’ digital site with 77.8 million and the Washington Post’s site with 77.7 million.
On its mobile app in June, Fox News garnered almost 7 million unique visitors and CNN nabbed 6.7 million unique visitors, for yet another close race.
For the record: A previous version of this story had incorrect data for quarterly minutes and views.