CNN Press Release: CNN Digital No. 1 in Traffic, Video and Mobile, Gulf Coast Oil Spill Coverage, New Blogs Contribute to Traffic Increase

In May, CNN Digital remained No. 1 among ALL Global News & Current Event sites in several key metrics, beating properties such as MSNBC Digital, Yahoo! News and Fox News Digital.

Throughout the month, the oil spill disaster in the Gulf brought enormous traffic to CNN.com. The site served nearly 7 million live video streams in May, a 450% increase over the prior 6-month average, due in large part to a continuous live stream from an underwater camera in the Gulf. Globally over the month, CNN.com served 15 million live and on-demand video streams related to the oil spill. (VOD and Live Video data from Omniture SiteCatalyst, May 2010). In addition to video, CNN.com's oil spill coverage generated more than 70 million page views, and users have submitted 1,340 iReports with 75 vetted for use on CNN in May.


Traffic

* No. 1 in Total Usage Minutes: 862 million minutes, 327 million more than No. 2 Yahoo! News and 329 million more than No. 3 MSNBC Digital.


No. 1 in Audience among all TV News Sites: When compared to its cable news competition, CNN Digital topped them all in terms of unique audience. With 38 million unique visitors in May, CNN Digital’s audience was 27% larger than MSNBC Digital (30 million) and 148% larger than Fox News Digital (15 million).


No. 1 in Time Per Person: 22.7 minutes, the highest time spent among the top 20 News and Information sites. (Source: Nielsen Online Netview, May-10).

No. 1 in Page Views: 1.3 billion page views, 92% ahead of No. 2 Yahoo! News and 106% more than No. 3 MSNBC Digital in the news and information category. (Source: Nielsen Online Netview, May-10).


Video

No. 1 in Global Video Streams: 154 million total streams, beating No. 2 MSNBC Digital by 9 million streams. CNN Digital increased video streams by 50% over last May. (Source: Nielsen VideoCensus, StreamCensus Global, May 2010.)


Mobile

No. 1 on Mobile: With 13 million unique visitors to its mobile site in April, CNN Digital beat the nearest competitor, Fox News Digital, by 85%. This is the 40th consecutive month that CNN Digital has topped the news and current events category. (Source: Nielsen Mobile MediaView – April 2010. Note: May data not available at the time of this release)


CNN iReport

In May, CNN iReport received submissions from passionate users about two important assignments; remembering fallen troops for Memorial Day and first-person perspectives on the oil spill in the Gulf. Altogether, total iReport submissions increased 27% versus the prior month (11,287 to 14,346) and 16% versus the prior year (12,338 to 14,346). To date, there have been 445,745 submissions from more than half of a million (598,679) registered iReport reporters on CNN.

In conjunction with the Memorial Day holiday, users submitted approximately 1,200 iReports for CNN's "Home and Away" interactive, an immersive experience which allows users to learn about and pay tribute to more than 6,000 fallen troops from more than 20 countries (May 17 - 31, 2010).


CNN Blog Network

In May, CNN’s “This Just In” blog, which chronicles the latest breaking news developments, including those about the oil spill disaster, received more than 24 million page views, a 17% increase over April’s traffic.

As part of CNN.com’s focus on Entertainment coverage, the newly redesigned “Marquee Blog” received more than 19 million page views in May, a 22% gain over April. The “Marquee Blog” also experienced an all-time high of 1.7 million page views on May 27, the day after the launch of the new Entertainment section.

Additionally, kicking off its exploration of religious angles on the day's biggest stories, CNN launched the “Belief Blog” in May. In its first 10 days, “Belief Blog” received enough traffic to place it among the top 5 most-trafficked blogs on CNN.com.