NBCU News Group Also Ranks As #1 Digital News Organization Since April 2021
NBC News NOW Launches Third Primetime Streaming Program
MSNBC Releases New #1 Podcast – American Radical
January 25, 2022 – NBCU News Group (NBC News, TODAY, MSNBC and CNBC) saw 158 million unique visitors in December, ranking as the #1 news organization in the US, and beating CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Times and Washington Post. NBCU News Group was also #1 in total video minutes watched and total video starts in the month of November, holding that #1 spot for 7 months in a row (8th month in a row for minutes watched, since becoming a public facing entity).
NBCU News Group saw an average of 143 million unique visitors since April 2021, ranking as the #1 news organization during that time frame.
CNBC Digital is the #1 non-portal brand in Business News for unique visitors, both for 2021 and for the month of December. CNBC Digital also ranked #1 in Business News video for the year, with an average of 17 million unique video viewers, as well as 18 million unique video viewers in November, holding the top position for 11 consecutive months.
CNBC Make It celebrated its best year ever in 2021 and top stories for the vertical included features on cryptocurrency and NFTs via the Next Gen Investing franchise as well as strength from video series like Unlocked and Millennial Money.
MSNBC Digital had their strongest year on record, with unique visitors up nearly 9% for the year vs. 2020, seeing increased audiences on platforms such as Apple News. Plus, MSNBC Text drove more page views and more content than any other year on record. Finishing the year with its strongest performance since January. MSNBC video time spent per viewer ranked ahead of CNN.com for the 9th month in a row.
TODAY Digital has also had its strongest year on record, reaching more than 50 million unique visitors for 11 of the last 12 months, growing by 10% for the year and experiencing its third year in a row of growth in monthly unique visitors. In December, TODAY hit a new record, reaching 64 million unique visitors. TODAY also continues to rank, as it has throughout all of 2021, among the top 10 entities in the Lifestyle category for video views and minutes, and ranks among the top 5 entities for video viewers (November 2021).
NBCU News Group’s streaming networks, TODAY All Day and NBC News NOW, hit record viewership in 2021, with NBC News NOW seeing a monthly average of nearly 60 million video views and more than 20 million hours watched, up +56% in 2021 vs 2020. It was the streaming platform’s best year ever. TODAY All Day’s viewership is also up more than +200%in 2021 vs. 2020.
NBC News NOW also saw 65 million video views and 22 million hours watched in December. NBC News NOW launched its third primetime streaming program “NOW Tonight with Joshua Johnson” in December. The time slot increased during premiere week and full episode views across platforms continue to see strong consumption. In this chaotic news cycle, NOW Tonight with Joshua Johnson takes a step back to offer viewers context into the why and the how behind the biggest stories of the day. The program connects with its audience, utilizing an extensive social media presence to call on its viewers for daily participation, a voicemail line and email address that lets viewers share opinions and feedback, and a submission portal on NBCNews.com.
In addition, NBC News debuted an exclusive new digital special, “Fighting an Invisible Enemy: The Voices of Havana Syndrome,” featuring reporting from NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell and NBC News Correspondent Josh Lederman. The documentary first launched on NBCNews.com and subsequently aired on NBC News NOW.
TODAY All Day saw its best month on record in December and the past 4 months have been the lifestyle streaming network’s strongest months to-date after launching last summer.
CNBC hosted the first-ever CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer livestream event on December 9 and the Investing Club newsletter, which debuted in October, was the fastest growing and most engaged CNBC newsletter in 2021.
NBCU News Group had its top listener month on record, ranking in the top 5 of all podcast publishers in the US for December. Listenership was up +39% versus December 2020. Plus, it was the News Group’s 2nd best month ever for podcast downloads with more than 57 million global podcast downloads, up +28% versus the prior year.
2021 was the News Group’s best listener year on record, up +19% versus 2020. It was also the News Group’s best year on record for podcast downloads with an average of more than 50 million monthly global podcast downloads, up +20% versus 2020.
MSNBC launched the new original American Radical podcast, hosted by Ayman Mohyeldin, in December. The podcast hit #1 on Apple Podcasts within 24 hours of its launch. The five-episode series explores the life and radicalization of Rosanne Boyland, a pro-Trump rioter who died at the Capitol on January 6.
TODAY podcasts had one of their top five strongest months on record, reaching more than a million podcast downloads for a fourth straight month and more than doubling their downloads from the prior year.
CNBC podcasts, which drove a record number of downloads in 2021, had another record month in December, up 42% year-over-year.
Southlake was named to several ‘best podcasts of 2021’ lists, including The Atlantic’s “50 Best Podcasts of 2021” list and Variety’s “Best New Podcasts of 2021” list.
*Sources: Comscore Media Metrix (April-December 2021) & Comscore Video Metrix (April – November 2021), 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. Adobe Analytics & Partner Dashboards, Cross-Platform Global Data, December 2021 and January-December 2021. Podtrac, Total Mobile and Desktop US Audience and Global Downloads, December 2021 and January-December 2021.
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For more information, contact:
Emily Passer
NBC News Digital
Emily.Passer@nbcuni.com
Claudia Meyer-Samargia
NBC News Digital
Claudia.MeyerSamargia@nbcuni.com
