Fox News‘ online operations started 2020 by scoring record highs across key industry categories and driving its best month ever in multi-platform views and multi-platform unique visitors, according to Comscore.
Notching double digit growth over January 2019 in various key performance indicators, Fox News Digital Network totalled 1.9 billion multi-platform views (a 24 percent increase from January 2019), over 114 million multi-platform unique visitors (an 8 percent increase from January 2019), and 4.3 billion total multi-platform minutes (a 12 percent increase from January 2019).
In multi-platform minutes, Fox News Digital surpassed CNN.com for the 16th consecutive month and earned its second-highest month of multi-platform minutes since the 2016 election. The strong performance to start off the new year also helped drive the Fox News Mobile App ahead of the CNN Mobile App for the 14th month in a row in unique visitors (7.9 million versus 7.4 million).
In commenting on the month’s data, Fox News Digital Editor-In-Chief Porter Berry said, “On the heels of Fox News Digital delivering its highest growth ever last year, we started 2020 out of the gate with an even stronger performance, and our enhanced editorial strategy yielded record highs. From the airstrike that killed Soleimani, to the Senate’s impeachment trial, to 2020 presidential election coverage, we are serving our loyal audience with enterprise reporting and compelling, original content on everything from politics, entertainment, and more around the globe.”
Fox News’ journalism was also a key driver of traffic for Fox News Digital. National Security correspondent Jennifer Griffin shattered records with her exclusive breaking news reporting on the escalating situation with Iran on January 7th and earned Fox News Digital its third highest performing day in page views, just behind the 2016 presidential election.
Unique devices also followed this trend, with Fox News Digital experiencing its third highest day of unique devices ever behind the 2016 election and day following (11/8/16 and 11/9/16), according to Adobe Analytics. Other top performing stories on Fox News Digital this month included the heartbreaking news of the death of NBA all-star Kobe Bryant with commentary from Bryant family friend and sportscaster Jim Gray, the Senate impeachment live blog and trial updates, as well as the Ukrainian passenger plane struck by a Russian missile.
For the 65th consecutive month, Fox News remained the number one most engaged news brand on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) among the news competitive set, driving 60.5 million total interactions, according to Socialbakers. January was a record month for Fox News Instagram interactions and YouTube video views, reaching over 20 million interactions and over 302 million video views for the first time ever.
Fox Business also secured its highest month of multi-platform views and multi-platform minutes to date, with 99 million multi-platform views (a 55 percent increase from January 2019) and 183 million multi-platform minutes in January, also its highest month ever in this category (a 138 percent increase from January 2019).