Media rebounds on seismic news cycle
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Engagement with news content has spiked over the past few weeks, giving news publishers a much-needed reprieve from bad traffic and ratings.
Why it matters: Election years are typically a boon to the news business, but this year has turned out to be one of the most brutal ever for the industry, with layoffs and cost-cutting measures reaching records.
- Job cuts across broadcast, digital, and print news companies were up 14.6% during the first half of this year, compared to the first half of last year, per Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
This summer's unprecedented news cycle kicked off when former President Trump was found guilty in the New York hush money case (May 30). Weeks later, President Biden's son Hunter Biden was found guilty of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer (June 11). The Supreme Court later ruled Trump has some immunity from criminal prosecution (July 1).
- Biden's disastrous debate performance (June 27) prompted Democratic pressure to get him out of the race. He resisted until shortly after former Trump survived an assassination attempt (July 13).
- Trump saw his second legal win this summer when a federal indictment against him on classified documents was dismissed. (July 15). That same day he selected Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate at the RNC.
- President Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19 (July 19) and dropped out of the race days later (July 21). He endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris on the same day and she's been viral online since. So has Vance, for different reasons.
By the numbers: Since the June 27 debate, web traffic to U.S. news sites spiked to the highest level since early 2023, according to data from Taboola Newsroom users.
- Publishers saw major bumps in interest on social media: Across a group of eight major publications we looked at, there was a 50% increase in Instagram interactions and a 42% jump in Facebook interactions in the last 30 days compared to the month prior, according to exclusive data from NewsWhip.
- Cable news saw ratings bumps in June due to CNN's June 27th debate, which aired across most major cable and broadcast news networks. Fox has seen an enormous ratings jump this month and averaged more than 5 million total viewers in primetime last week during the RNC.
Between the lines: Publishers hope the engagement bump can help revive their subscription businesses.
- The Washington Post's CEO Will Lewis on Friday sent staffers an email, noting, "Sunday was a record day for subscription starts on a non-sale day This has been the best non-sale subscription starts week since August 2021, and we've seen the highest traffic since the week of January 2, 2023."
Yes, but: Web traffic to news publishers remains well below the pre-pandemic baseline, according to the Taboola data. Only the biggest news spikes bring readership above 2019 levels.
- Publishers have struggled to make up traffic losses they've experienced from social media firms pivoting away from news, particularly Facebook.
The big picture: News publishers always depend on readership spikes during election years.
- But prior to the past six weeks, 2024 was a bit of an outlier in being a sleepy election cycle.
What's next: Interest will likely remain high throughout the remaining months of the election cycle. But what happens next depends on who wins.
- A Trump presidency — and the ensuing reverberations — will almost certainly fuel the news cycle well into 2025.
- A Harris win, while historic, could mean a less drama-filled term.
