CNN’s US audience continues to drift away to rivals MSNBC, Fox News and others. However, the table looks very different if you measure online activity. Quoting comScore data for last year, CNN says that it drew more than 73 million unique visitors across all its on-line services last year, and that more than 100 million video were started from its web-based sites.

Moreover, says CNN, that 73 million number outpaced its news rivals handsomely. CNN says it beat MSNBC by 38 per cent, Fox News by 187 per cent, ABC News Digital by 217 per cent and CBS Interactive by 260 per cent.  CNN also claims to be more than leading the pack as far as mobile/cellular news is concerned, with 19.5 million ‘unique visitors per month’, and of the cluster of news channels, it is the most popular on Facebook and Twitter. Fox News is next on Facebook, while the New York Times is its closest rival on Twitter.

But now that the US Presidential elections are well underway, all the above might change to further enhance CNN’s status and rankings. For example, last Thursday’s Republican Party debate between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney saw CNN hit the sweet spot and reach its second-highest ratings success. CNN star anchor Wolf Blitzer moderated the event which garnered 5.4 million total viewers.

CNN is looking to repeat the victory on February 22nd when the next live debate happens.

Categories: Articles, Content, Markets, Research