BCU News Group Saw Average of 134M Monthly Unique Visitors
NBC News NOW, TODAY All Day & Dateline 24/7 Mark Best Quarter on Record
NBCU News Group Leads All News Brands on Emerging Platforms
April 17, 2023 – NBCU News Group (NBC News, TODAY, MSNBC and CNBC) ranks as the #1 digital news organization in the U.S. for Q1 2023, beating all competition. The News Group saw a monthly average of 134 million unique visitors in Q1, beating CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Times and Washington Post.
NBCU News Group has ranked #1 for 21 months since becoming a public-facing entity in April 2021 as the leading news brand.
NBCNews.com reached an average of 80 million unique visitors in Q1, with the largest audience among the NBCU News Group brands, and ranking ahead of competitors such as Washington Post and ABC News. 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 62 million unique visitors in Q1 2023. CNBC is the #1 non-portal business news brand. It’s also the #1 non-portal brand in Business News video with 11 million monthly video unique viewers in Q1 2023 to-date. Additionally, CNBC Make It had its best quarter ever.
This quarter to-date, MSNBC Digital saw nearly 121 million average monthly video views. In March, MSNBC saw 18 million monthly unique visitors, the largest audience since November 2022. In addition, MSNBC Digital text content including MSNBC Daily, The Reidout Blog, Maddow Blog and Know Your Value, had its strongest first quarter ever with page views up more than 60% versus the prior year.
TODAY Digital averaged 48 million monthly unique visitors in Q1 2023, continuing to rank as the third largest individual publisher among leading lifestyle and entertainment brands. TODAY Digital also ranked among the top three leading lifestyle and entertainment brands across key video metrics.
NBCU News Group’s streaming services, NBC News NOW, TODAY All Day and Dateline 24/7 all marked their best quarter on record.
NBC News NOW, NBC News’ 24/7 streaming news network, had its strongest quarter on record, up more than 13%+ year-over-year. In addition, March 2023 marked its best month in over a year.
This quarter, NBC News NOW launched the first streaming extension of Stay Tuned with an evening newscast anchored by Gadi Schwartz, Stay Tuned NOW. In addition, Hallie Jackson NOW expanded to two hours, now airing 5-7 p.m. ET, has experienced +26% growth in viewership since the expansion.
TODAY All Day had its second straight record quarter, up by 27% in Q1 2023 versus Q1 2022. March 2023 was TODAY All Day’s strongest month ever, growing 48% year-over-year. The past four 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 nearly +300% as the channel continues to expand across platforms. March 2023 was Dateline 24/7’s third straight record month.
NBCU News Group has ranked as a top 5 podcast publisher in the U.S. for the last 13 months, according to Podtrac. Listenership was up +26% versus Q1 2022. Plus, the News Group delivered an average 66 million monthly global podcast downloads this quarter, up +15% versus Q1 2022. The last two quarters have been the strongest on record for both listeners and downloads.
March 2023 was the NBCU News Group’s strongest month on record for downloads, marking the 19th straight month with more than 50 million downloads.
Dateline’s chart-topping showcast, which features broadcasts as podcast episodes, delivered its strongest quarter ever with 100 million downloads, growing by more than +20% vs. Q1 2022.
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 8.2 million followers on TikTok with 76% growth versus the same month last year and delivered 214 million video views in March.
NBC News is up 55% in followers versus this time last year and delivered 81 million views on TikTok in March. MSNBC is up 88% in followers, while TODAY Digital is up 169%. In March, TODAY had one of its top three months on record with 95 million video views on TikTok, +95% versus the 2022 monthly average. Plus, CNBC grew its followers on TikTok by 244% in Q1 2023 versus Q1 2022. March 2023 was CNBC’s second best month ever on TikTok with more than 2x as many video views as March 2022.
Stay Tuned ended the quarter with 11 million followers across platforms. Stay Tuned on TikTok is up 19% in followers versus the end of Q1 2022. In March, Stay Tuned saw more than 42 million video views across platforms, including record levels on YouTube.
Sources: Comscore Media Metrix® , April 2021 – March 2023, U.S. & Comscore Video Metrix®, April 2021 – February 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, March 2023. Podtrac, Total Mobile and Desktop US Audience and Global Downloads, March 2023. ListenFirst Media, March 2023. Snapchat Analytics Portal, March 2023.
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For more information, contact:
Claudia Meyer-Samargia
NBC News Digital
Claudia.MeyerSamargia@nbcuni.com
