Swift election result reduces traffic to US news sites

In stark contrast to the politically charged and protracted US presidential election of 2020, the 2024 race concluded swiftly, with Donald Trump declared the winner soon after polls closed. This accelerated timeline resulted in a noticeably diminished traffic bump to news sites compared with the sustained surge witnessed four years ago.

Data from Similarweb, shared by David Carr, editor of insights, news and research, indicates a 20% drop in US web traffic to news sites when comparing the election periods of 2020 and 2024.

Surprisingly, however, traffic to the top 50 news websites such as CNN.com and NBCNews.com was actually 6.8% higher on Election Day itself in 2024 than it was in 2020. Yet, by the following day, traffic dwindled to 20% less than that of the day after Joe Biden’s triumph in 2020.

Breaking it down further, traffic from the day before the 2024 Election through the subsequent Saturday saw a 20.9% decrease to top 50 websites, when measured against the same timeframe in 2020. CNN.com, leading the charge on Election Day with 57.9 million visits, saw a drop to 51.3 million visits the next day, considerably lower than the 81.1 million recorded in 2020.

CNN described this traffic level as among its top ten busiest days, despite it not surpassing the peak of the Covid-impacted 2020 election cycle. They highlighted 35 million unique visitors engaged with their Election Day live story, marking it as their most popular content of the year.

Likewise, the New York Times observed a decline in visits, with 29.4 million on November 5, 2024, and 33 million the following day, down from the 36 million and 61 million the respective days in 2020 brought. Although the New York Times did not comment directly on the trend, they noted a substantial increase in their email audience, with engagement close to three times that of 2020.

The expedited conclusion of the 2024 election could partly explain the waning traffic; the presidency was decided a day after the vote, compared to the prolonged wait until the following weekend in 2020.

US traffic to the top 100 news and media sites also saw a 4.6% downturn in the lead-up to the 2024 election, relative to 2020.

Mollie Muchna, project manager at Trusting News, attributes this decline in traffic to a growing trend of news avoidance and the increasing tendency of younger generations to source information from content creators on social media platforms over traditional media outlets.

Melissa Chowning, founder and CEO of Twenty-First Digital, echoed these findings, highlighting a shift in how audiences consume news, with an increasing number turning to video and audio formats instead of text articles.

That said, not all metrics were negative. NBCNews.com, for example, reported a notable increase in site visits, with 23.9 million on November 5 and 20.4 million on November 6, 2024, a significant rise from the 8 million and 12.2 million visits during the same days in 2020. Time magazine also witnessed an uptick, attracting 1.9 million visitors on Election Day 2024 and 1.3 million the following day, compared to 676,000 and 1 million in 2020, respectively.

Time’s editor in chief, Sam Jacobs, attributed their success to preparedness for various outcomes, which allowed them to deliver a broad range of journalistic content quickly under challenging conditions. This adaptability, Jacobs suggests, may have contributed to larger audience engagements than seen four years prior.

Source: Noah Wire Services