This is a quickie about something I came across.
The therighting.com is a right wing source for conservative and far right media across the web where they post links to selected articles. On occasion it was stated they will also post some content of their own. I myself was unaware of the site until I came across a posting on another website about it and a report they released.
March 27, 2024, New York, NY –In its second election year traffic report, TheRighting found that the vast majority of right wing news websites it monitored experienced significant audience erosion. Eighty-six percent experienced declines of 44% or more. TheRighting’s analysis looked at February 2024 unique visitors and compared it to February 2020 traffic. Only one right wing news website posted a year-over-year (YOY) traffic increase in TheRighting’s top 15 election year comparison.
TheRighting also released today its analysis of February 2024 vs February 2023 mobile and desktop traffic. The YOY comparison showed that the audiences decreased to most right wing websites during the 12-month period.
And many losses are ongoing from 2020. Some are losing a majority of readership compared to the previous year. I would suggest looking at the actual post of the report at TheRighting which includes a table of media traffic for sites including desktop and mobile views of blogs, news magazines and major media.
Traffic fell more than 80% for five news websites TheRighting monitored in this period: Twitchy (-93%), The Federalist (-91%), Washington Times (-89%), Western Journal (-84%) and the Drudge Report (-81%). This marks the first time Drudge has been included in TheRighting’s monthly traffic chart. In February 2024, the influential and long-running news aggregator attracted just 339,000 unique visitors, according to Comscore data, resulting in an 81% decline. Drudge generated 1,787,000 unique visitors in February 2020.
For the second month in a row, of all the news websites that TheRighting surveyed in its February election year comparison, only Newsmax posted a rise in unique visitors from 2020 to 2024 (+37%).
It's worth looking at. It's a short report but they have a larger table of results for media which has gains and losses across media sites.
“Right wing websites appear more susceptible to steeper election year audience erosion than mainstream or left-leaning outlets,” said Howard Polskin, President and Founder, TheRighting. “But news sites on both sides of the aisle are feeling the effects of primary battles devoid of drama, which impacts traffic. Compare that to February 2020 when we had the contested New Hampshire primary, the contested Iowa caucuses, and the growing menace of a deadly new virus.
They also posted some losses for liberal sites which have declined. They state this being seen across all mainstream media.
The new sites TheRighting surveyed in the February election year comparison include... ...Slate (-42%), and The Daily Beast (-45%). Audiences dipped at the three mainstream news sites TheRighting regularly follows: CNN (-19%), The NY Times (-22%) and The Washington Post (-43%).
Another site mentioned there was in fact Daily Kos. Our loss of viewers fell… only -4% over the last year according to their survey.
My personal take is that I am glad to see that viewers of this site seem to remain engaged. In part our collective correct predictions of outcomes as seen in the 2022 elections could be why here the trend is not really taking hold. Where, at least among a majority of front pagers, it was suggested that Democratic losses would be minimal which proved correct. As well as that we were hopeful to hold and even expand on Senate seats for our side which was another good prognostication. Those solid assessments of the political landscape are important to people.
My other personal take was that this report of a serious falling away of readership on the GOP side did not surprise me. It's an awful time to be a conservative, be you moderate or MAGA. Between Trump fatigue and his very uncertain way forward, the humiliating trainwreck that is their House majority, and for those attentive enough to see another potential blue wave beginning to swell, I suspect that there may be a decline among the numbers of right wing conservative voters and libertarians showing up at the voting booth this fall as well. Both Republican and especially Independent. Along with what may be small but significant defections from their side though probably larger than usual as the amount of votes this year may cross over to Democratic wins. At least in the presidential race and abortion ballot measures. Those really fed up might continue to vote blue down ticket.
Any bad news about the stumbles and failures of the American right make it a good day for this reader.
Edit: added the correct link to TheRighting homepage.