The News
Some news organizations and news media outlets are starting to see a bump in traffic, subscriptions, and viewership in the wake of the inauguration, a sign that opponents of Trump are starting to tune back into the news en masse. This week, MSNBC appeared to slightly pull itself back out of its ratings doldrums, noting slight gains among key viewers and in the key advertising demographic, and host Rachel Maddow’s show posted its largest viewership bump since the election. (Still, no cable network is performing stronger than Fox News, which continues to hold strong against cord-cutting trends with its dominant audience numbers.)
A spokesperson for the Guardian told Semafor it saw a 250% increase in fundraising last week garnering $4 million in pledges compared to $1.6 million in the same period last year. The Guardian’s largest fundraising day was Jan 21st, the day after Trump’s inauguration, as stories about Trump’s executive orders and Elon Musk drove a major uptick in traffic. Substack told Semafor that its mobile app had repeatedly set daily active user records over the past several days, and the week of Jan. 13 was its biggest week ever in new paid subscriptions.
Former Washington Post opinion writer Jen Rubin’s new Substack, The Contrarian, garnered 10,000 paid sign-ups in its first 12 hours, according to figures shared with Semafor. Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark, did not disclose the publication’s growth numbers but told Semafor that it had experienced “robust growth since the election in paid subscribers and YouTube subscribers,” both of which accelerated rapidly last week. A spokesperson for The Atlantic similarly did not offer specifics, but said the recent “dramatic growth” in subscribers had continued since the election, particularly tied to democracy-related and accountability journalism.
Despite internal tumult, a person familiar with the Washington Post’s subscriber information told Semafor that the paper experienced week-over-week bumps in subscribers. The Post has been attempting to claw back some of its losses — a spokesperson for the paper said it won back at least 20% of the subscribers the paper lost post-endorsement, and 74% of subscribers who are still in ‘cancelled’ status continue to engage with Washington Post content.