NBCU News Group Saw Average of 131M Monthly Unique Visitors
Dateline 24/7 and TODAY All Day Mark Best Quarter on Record
NBCU News Group Leads All News Brands on Emerging Platforms
July 19, 2023 – NBCU News Group (NBC News, TODAY, MSNBC and CNBC) ranks as the #1 digital news organization in the U.S. for Q2 2023, beating all competition. The News Group saw a monthly average of 131 million unique visitors in Q2, beating CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Times and Washington Post.
NBCU News Group has ranked #1 for 24 months since becoming a public-facing entity in April 2021 as the leading news brand and #1 for 9 consecutive quarters.
NBCNews.com reached an average of 79 million unique visitors in Q2, with the largest audience among the NBCU News Group brands, and ranking ahead of competitors such as Washington Post and ABC News. In June, NBCNews.com reached its largest audience since January 2023 with 86 million unique visitors. In addition, NBCNews.com is also outpacing CNN.com this quarter to-date in video time spent per viewer.
CNBC Digital recorded an average of 57 million unique visitors in Q2 2023. CNBC is the #2 business news site on the internet, ahead of WSJ.com, Reuters.com, Foxbusiness.com, and Bloomberg.com. It’s also the #1 brand in business news video time spent with 578 million monthly minutes viewed in Q2 2023 to-date. Additionally, CNBC Make It reached a record high unique visitors in April 2023 and a record high volume of video views in Q2 2023.
MSNBC Digital in 2Q23 saw double-digit growth versus the prior year in reach and quarter to-date, MSNBC Digital saw 149 million average monthly video views. MSNBC Digital text content including MSNBC Daily, The Reidout Blog, Maddow Blog and Know Your Value had its strongest quarter on record with page views up 40% versus the prior year.
TODAY Digital averaged 47 million monthly unique visitors in Q2 2023 and ranked as the second largest individual publisher among leading lifestyle and entertainment brands. TODAY Digital also ranked as the second leading lifestyle and entertainment brand across key video metrics.
NBCU News Group’s streaming services, NBC News NOW, TODAY All Day and Dateline 24/7 all marked major viewership milestones.
NBC News NOW, NBC News’ 24/7 streaming news network, has had its two strongest quarters on record in Q1 and Q2 2023. NBC News NOW has seen six consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth and is pacing up more than 9%+ year-over-year in 2023
TODAY All Day had its third straight record quarter, up by 114% in Q2 2023 versus Q2 2022. The past 10 months have been the lifestyle streaming network’s strongest months to-date.
Dateline 24/7, the streaming channel for the true-crime powerhouse, had its best quarter on record, up 376% year-over-year as the channel continues to expand across platforms.
On Peacock, The NBCU News Group had its best quarter on record, growing 44% year-over-year. The last two quarters have been the News Group’s strongest ever on the platform. Both MSNBC and TODAY reached record levels in Q2 2023, growing by triple-digits versus the same quarter last year.
NBCU News Group is the #4 top podcast publisher in the US, according to Podtrac. It was the News Group’s 2nd best quarter ever with the last three quarters all among the strongest on record. The News Group has seen eleven consecutive quarters of year-over-year audience growth with listenership up +18% in Q2 2023 versus Q2 2022. Plus, the News Group delivered an average 66 million monthly global podcast downloads this quarter, up +6% versus Q2 2022.
Dateline’s chart-topping showcast, which features broadcasts as podcast episodes, delivered 100 million downloads for the 2nd straight quarter, growing by more than +7% versus Q2 2022. The last two quarters have been the showcast’s strongest on record. The showcast also surpassed one billion lifetime downloads at the beginning of Q2.
CNBC’s Power Lunch podcast had a record quarter and the Closing Bell podcast had its 2nd best quarter ever.
NBCU News Group continues to lead all other news brands across younger emerging platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat for the quarter. On TikTok, NBCU News Group ranks as #1 in both followers and views, ahead of ABC News, CBS News, The Washington Post, CNN, The New York Times and Fox News. NBCU News Group ended the quarter at 8.8 million followers on TikTok with 51% growth versus the same month last year.
NBC News is up 29% in followers versus this time last year and delivered 43 million views on TikTok. MSNBC is up 73% in followers, while TODAY Digital is up 141%. TODAY saw one of its strongest months on record in June with nearly 80M views, the strongest brand within the News Group on the platform and ahead of all key competitors. Plus, CNBC had a record quarter on TikTok in Q2 and grew its followers by 298% in Q2 2023 versus Q2 2022.
NBC News drove its second strongest month of the past two years on YouTube with 200M video views, ranking ahead of CNN, ABC News and CBS News on the platform. MSNBC saw nearly 210M views on YouTube in June, up double digits versus the prior year and ranking ahead of both Fox News and CNN. TODAY on YouTube also saw strength with 50M views, delivering more monthly views than GMA.
Stay Tuned ended the quarter with 11.3 million followers across platforms. Stay Tuned on TikTok is up 18% in followers versus the end of Q2 2022 and monthly views are up +93%.
Sources: Comscore Media Metrix® , April 2021 – June 2023, U.S. & Comscore Video Metrix®, April 2021 – May 2023, U.S. desktop internet population 2+ and mobile internet population 13+ years old, Custom-Defined List, Based on NBCU News entity compared to a custom list of brand competitors that are also in the News/Information Category: ABC News, cbsnews.com, cnn.com, foxnews.com, The New York Times Brand, washingtonpost.com. Leading Lifestyle & Entertainment brands based on Custom-Defined List that includes top individual publishers within Lifestyle and Entertainment Category. Business News category excluding network entities. Adobe Analytics & Partner Dashboards, Cross-Platform Global Data, June 2023. Podtrac, Total Mobile and Desktop US Audience and Global Downloads, June 2023. ListenFirst Media, June 2023. Snapchat Analytics Portal, June 2023.
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For more information, contact:
Claudia Meyer-Samargia
NBC News
Claudia.MeyerSamargia@nbcuni.com
