Fox News’ mobile app saw year over year growth in December and edged out CNN’s app in total monthly unique viewers for a 25th consecutive month. The news wars are clearly no longer just about television ratings or even web traffic.
The numbers were close, but ultimately, Fox News came out ahead in December, bringing in 8.1 million unique visitors to its app. CNN had 7.9 million users on its app.
In December, FoxNews.com was #5 in the competitive set, according to Comscore data, with 87.9 million unique visitors. CNN.com was in first place with 151 million unique multi-platform visitors. Between them were the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today.
The digital battles are far from over, too: December was big, but January is sure to bring its own massive news consumption numbers as it draws to a close. This month saw not only the deadly riot at the United States Capitol, but outgoing president Donald Trump’s second impeachment and the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
The day of the Capitol riot alone, 72 million people tuned to CNN’s digital spaces for updates. Concurrent streams peaked at 1.8 million viewers. Two weeks later, 61 million used CNN’s digital platforms to consume information about the inauguration. Meanwhile, Fox News was the most engaged news brand on Facebook among the news competitive set on Inauguration Day, bringing in 3.6 million total interactions for an increase of 140% and more than two times the average weekday of 2020.