“On A Fast Track To Irrelevance”: Drudge Report Viewership Collapses 45%, Down 9 Months In A Row

We reported weeks ago that Drudge Report was in the midst of a historic viewership collapse amidst the site’s new, anti-Trump ethos. That trend doesn’t appear to be slowing, according to new data about the site’s viewership in September. 

Drudge Report saw a 45% decline in web traffic for September as a result of turning against the President, according to new comScore data.  Drudge had 1,291,000 unique visitors in September, which is down from 2,340,000 during the same month a year prior, according to The New York Post. 

It is the ninth month in a row that Drudge has seen its traffic decline and, even worse for Drudge, it comes at a time when political news is in high demand as the nation heads into a major general election. 

Matt Lysiak, author of “The Drudge Revolution” told the Post: “It’s catastrophic what has happened to his web traffic. He’s on a fast track to irrelevance.”

He continued: “…what accelerated his decline is when he shifted to the left and turned on Trump and lost many of his core readers. By any criteria, this shift was a complete disaster for him.”

Lysiak said: “Liberals are never going to love Drudge, even if he’s not linking to stories about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. They’ll always remember what happened with Bill Clinton.”

Drudge’s September collapse comes at the same time many other political websites have seen viewership tick higher. Competitor and Fox News contributor Dan Bongino has seen his site’s traffic at Bongino.com explode, up 780% year over year in September. Fox News has seen its traffic move higher by 9%, CNN’s traffic has risen 11% and both the New York Times and the Washington Post have seen their traffic up 3% in September. 

Howard Polskin, president and chief curator at TheRighting, commented: “Strong audience growth for most conservative websites continues to be driven by a heated news environment that shows no signs of cooling off.”

He also noted that there wasn’t a lack of news in September to blame: “Notable stories in September 2020 included the escalation of the pandemic, the dramatic revelations in Bob Woodward’s latest book on President Trump, the fireworks that characterized the first Trump-Biden debate, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the contentious nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and the explosive story in the New York Times about Trump’s tax returns.”

He continued: “These stories played like a reality show and kept audiences thoroughly engaged throughout the month as they kept turning to news media to learn the latest unfolding developments.”

Recall, Drudge’s traffic fell in August fell to 63 million readers, down from 66 million in May, according to True Pundit. About a year prior, in September 2019, the site was regularly garnering 95 million readers. Comscore data also put Drudge’s viewers at 1.488 million unique visitors in July, down 38% from July of 2019, according to The Wrap.

The slide comes after many conservatives, including President Donald Trump, have asserted that the site had given up its long held conservative ideology. Back in September, President Trump tweeted that his people have “all left Drudge,” referring to the media mogul as a “confused MESS”. 

“Such an honor! Drudge is down 40% plus since he became Fake News. Most importantly, he’s bleeding profusely, and is no longer “hot”. But others are! Lost ALL Trumpers,” Trump wrote in another Tweet at the end of summer.