CBC’s online coverage of the Rio Olympics has contributed to a major jump in its position in Similarweb’s monthly ranking of the leading U.S. publishers.
According to the data intelligence firm’s U.S. Media Publishers and Publications report for August, CBC.ca led all publishers in month-over-month growth, jumping 41 spots to 118th place in the ranking of the top 150 publishers.
Similarweb said CBC had a “very successful” month, increasing its desktop pages-per-visit by 45%. CBC had 21.9 million combined U.S. pageviews in August, with Similarweb reporting 1.4 million of its U.S. desktop visits came from Reddit – more than Facebook and Twitter combined.
The report characterized Reddit as “the new frontier” for publishers, noting it is growing in importance in light of Facebook’s recent algorithm change enabling users to see more posts from friends and family. According to Similarweb, these changes have already adversely impacted some publishers’ traffic.
Reddit had 590 million U.S. visits in August and was the 11th most popular site in the country, according to Similarweb. The report also noted Reddit’s official app, released in April, had passed its largest competitors to become the most installed Reddit app on U.S. Android devices.
“Publishers may soon begin to reap the benefits of Reddit traffic on desktop, mobile web, and app,” said the report.
Similarweb said the Rio Games produced a “major shakeup” among the leading online publishers, with Yahoo surpassing MSN and Disney to top the leaderboard for the first time since it began compiling publisher data.
Top spot went to Yahoo, whose coverage of the Rio Olympics on Sports.Yahoo.com enabled it to rack up more than 2 billion pageviews and climb three places in the rankings.
Elsewhere, the report noted Univision’s five-month-old Fusion Media Group had emerged as a “major player,” amassing 563 million U.S. pageviews in August. The organization recently acquired Gawker Media properties including Gizmodo.com, LifeHacker.com, Deadspin.com, Kotaku.com and the now defunct Gawker.com in a bankruptcy auction for a reported US$135 million.
