Online traffic for ABC News has spiked by 165 percent, while video streams have increased 179 percent since the network announced its news alliance four months ago with Yahoo! And January 2012, was the network’s largest month ever, with over 414 million page views and 100 million videos watched at the Disney-owned network.
The game-changer for ABC has been its news partnership with Yahoo!. The network is now a direct competitor with CNN, which still claims to have the top rated broadcast news website. CNN.com averaged 101 million monthly video streams throughout 2011.
ABC’s dramatic audience growth came amazingly fast. The online site for ABC News’ “Good Morning America” has tripled its monthly traffic and grown 25 percent each month, the network said.
The new numbers also demonstrated the power of social media. In January, Facebook referrals to ABCNews.com doubled and Twitter referrals increased 62 percent. Mobile audiences also grew, with viewers climbing 16 percent month-over-month and page views increasing 24 percent compared to December.
This gives ABC an average television and radio audience of 180 million people since the change. More than 2,400 affiliate stations broadcast ABC News Radio’s global news coverage. In addition, ABC News NOW is a 24-hour news and information network currently available to 44 million users across cable, broadband and mobile platforms.
NewsOne, the affiliate news service of ABC News, provides live and packaged news, sports and weather reports, as well as footage of news events, to 200 ABC affiliates and more than 30 domestic and international clients.
