CNN Maintains Its Digital Leadership Position in 2012

Related: CNN

CNN maintained its digital leadership position in 2012, beating nearly every news and information website in both unique viewers and page views. Holding its spot behind only The Combined Yahoo!-ABC News Network, CNN Digital averaged 62 million unique visitors per month. For 2012 CNN's average monthly visitors doubled FOX News Digital (31 million) and The New York Times Brand (29 million) and CNN topped the Huffington Post Media Group by 2 million, NBC News Digital by 5 million and CBS News by 22 million.

With 1.8 billion average page views for the year, CNN Digital outperformed HPMG News by 19%, NBC News Digital by 44%, FOX News Digital by 75%, CBS News by 134% and The NYT Brand by 208%. (Source: comScore Media Metrix, Jan - Dec. 2012; average monthly)

Beyond its breaking news coverage, CNN.com experienced impressive growth in key sections for the year. With 32 million average monthly page views, the site's Travel section grew 87% YOY. Earning a 48% gain in traffic over 2011, CNN.com's Politics section averaged 72 million page views per month and CNN Opinion grew by 52%, World by 33% and U.S. 38%.

Video

CNN.com served up more than 92 million average monthly global video starts in 2012. The site's most-viewed videos are as follows:

Top 10 VoD Global Videos
Title
Video Starts

1. Witness: 3 went into hall, 1 came back
2,739,443

2. View Hurricane Sandy from space
2,628,005

3. 3rd grader describes shooting from class
2,180,397

4. Choppers captures damage on Jersey coast
1,983,593

5. Video: Chaos at theater shooting scene
1,948,136

6. Tragedy strikes at Elementary school
1,947,438

7. Obama weeps over school massacre
1,915,898

8. Mom: Teacher saved son from bullets
1,830,191

9. Massive waves wash over New Jersey homes
1,787,227

10. Big rigs sucked into storm
1,674,401

The top five days for live video streams below:

Global Live Video Days

Date Title Live Streams
1. October 29, 2012 Hurricane Sandy Day 2
1,932,608

2. February 18, 2012 Whitney Houston funeral
1,865,724

3. October 3, 2012 1st 2012 Presidential Debate
1,188,948

4. November 7, 2012 Day After Election 2012
1,188,473

5. October 16, 2012 2nd Presidential Debate
1,186,582

(Source: Omniture Jan. - Dec. 2012)

Mobile

For more than five consecutive years, CNN Digital has remained the No. 1 mobile news sourcein the world. In 2012, the CNN Digital Network claimed an average of 21.2 million unique users per month, besting its nearest competitor by 25%. CNN's mobile website generated a monthly average of 227.4 million global page views for the year. (Bango Analytics, January 1 - December 31, 2012)

CNN's mobile apps for iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows, Kindle Fire, Nook and Nokia now boast more than 28 million downloads -- 12 million occurred in 2012. (iTunes Connect, Android Market, Ovi Store, App Hub, Windows Phone Dev Center, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, January 1-December 31, 2012).

iReport

CNN iReport, the No. 1 global participatory news COMMUNITY, averaged approximately a quarter million dailypage views for 2012, an increase of 11% YOY. In October iReport broke its prior traffic records, earning 21 million page views, due in large part to submissions related to Hurricane Sandy. In addition, the Community attracted 210,000 new iReporters last year. (Source: iReport Internal Server Data - through December 2012)

Social

For 2012 CNN continued to dominate in social media, earning more social mentions for major breaking news events (including Hurricane Sandy, Elections, Debates, Sandy Hook, etc.) than any other organization and maintaining its position as the most social news brand in the world. (Source: Sysomos)

Twitter

With more than 40 million followers across all its branded accounts, CNN is the number one news organization on Twitter. @CNN has earned more than 7 million followers while @CNNbrk boasts more than 10 million, making it Twitter's most followed TV brand handle. CNN's @AndersonCooper (3.4 million followers) and @PiersMorgan (3 million followers) remain the two most-followed journalists on Twitter. @CNN's top tweet for 2012 received 12k+ total actions (retweets, replies, favorites). (Source: Twitter Analytics)

Facebook

CNN remains the number one news organization on Facebook with more than 11 million fans across all CNN-branded Facebook pages. The Top Facebook post of 2012 ("Are you voting in the 2012 election?") on the CNN Facebook fan page received 108K total actions (likes, comments, shares). (Source: Facebook API)