The Most Popular News Sites on YouTube

YouTube is both a major opportunity and an interesting challenge for news sites. News organizations want to drive video impressions to their own sites but since YouTube dominates the online video world they need to have a presence there. So whether they see it as a necessarily evil or a great chance to reach new audiences, YouTube is in the social media mix.

In my ongoing look at mainstream media outlets and social media I have done multiple posts on news sites and Twitter, Facebook and Digg but I’ve yet to look at YouTube. So I thought I’d investigate how well news sites are doing at building channel subscribers and video views.

I compiled the figures by looking at the profile boxes on channel pages and from YouTube’s search results, for example:

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Not every site shares the same information in its profile but I pulled as much data as I could. As a side note the subscriber counts shown in YouTube’s search results tend to lag behind the counts shown on the actual channel pages. For this post I used the larger of the numbers.

Here is a selection of mainstream media sites ranked by subscribers to their channel pages:

		Subscribers	Videos	Channel Views	Total Upload Views
1	AP	110,785	36,656	4,566,123	494,780,074
2	The New York Times	36,710	2,148	949,788	26,827,939
3	CBS News	22,310	14,236	807,687	45,431,936
4	BBC World News	21,839	450	Not available	Not available
5	CNN	21,793	19,514	716,407	9,489,366
6	Fox News Channel	17,947	1,968	589,302	12,499,452
7	ABC News	17,217	4,056	522,922	26,065,220
8	Reuters	16,698	7,622	457,532	22,171,857
9	Time	9,600	378	269,716	8,916,985
10	Los Angeles Times	9,480	2,745	280,093	34,056,343
11	Forbes	6,362	1,077	192,658	9,310,619
12	NPR	5,583	137	97,810	1,559,169
13	PBS NewsHour	5,351	655	1,070,446	1,264,061
14	WSJ Digital Network	4,890	536	359,245	9,199,672
15	Newsweek	4,023	523	146,746	3,731,309
16	The Guardian	3,885	878	157,613	3,661,099
17	Slate	3,730	144	95,290	11,460,994
18	The Economist	3,716	108	57,028	Not available
19	The Washington Post	3,552	256	231,931	4,409,583
20	Telegraph.co.uk	2,824	590	146,792	10,348,185
21	Chicago Tribune	2,772	574	164,891	6,765,157
22	UPI	2,498	1,288	135,833	9,216,737
23	USA Today	1,933	361	52,542	3,292,500
24	MSNBC (msnbcreporter)	1,558	303	33,493	581,725
25	The Christian Science Monitor	1,234	70	17,214	62,987
26	The Daily Beast	1,085	330	35,876	4,961,708
27	The Huffington Post	455	18	16,868	165,885
28	BBC World News America	382	58	9,150	247,974
29	The Boston Globe	325	408	31,018	222,156
30	The Financial Times	244	15	3,799	36,784
31	BusinessWeek	192	31	4,259	18,200
32	Daily Mail (UK)	103	17	3,226	324,512

The Associated Press leads every category by a considerable margin. The New York Times, CBS News, BBC World News (see note below), CNN, Fox News, ABC News and Reuters have also attracted significant followings.

But subscribers are one thing and actual video views are another, so for further comparison here are the news sites ranked by total upload views:

		Total Upload Views	Channel Views	Subscribers	Videos
1	AP	494,780,074	4,566,123	110,785	36,656
2	CBS News	45,431,936	807,687	22,310	14,236
3	Los Angeles Times	34,056,343	280,093	9,480	2,745
4	The New York Times	26,827,939	949,788	36,710	2,148
5	ABC News	26,065,220	522,922	17,217	4,056
6	Reuters	22,171,857	457,532	16,698	7,622
7	Fox News Channel	12,499,452	589,302	17,947	1,968
8	Slate	11,460,994	95,290	3,730	144
9	Telegraph.co.uk	10,348,185	146,792	2,824	590
10	CNN	9,489,366	716,407	21,793	19,514
11	Forbes	9,310,619	192,658	6,362	1,077
12	UPI	9,216,737	135,833	2,498	1,288
13	WSJ Digital Network	9,199,672	359,245	4,890	536
14	Time	8,916,985	269,716	9,600	378
15	Chicago Tribune	6,765,157	164,891	2,772	574
16	The Daily Beast	4,961,708	35,876	1,085	330
17	The Washington Post	4,409,583	231,931	3,552	256
18	Newsweek	3,731,309	146,746	4,023	523
19	The Guardian	3,661,099	157,613	3,885	878
20	USA Today	3,292,500	52,542	1,933	361
21	NPR	1,559,169	97,810	5,583	137
22	PBS NewsHour	1,264,061	1,070,446	5,351	655
23	MSNBC (msnbcreporter)	581,725	33,493	1,558	303
24	BBC World News America	247,974	9,150	382	58
25	The Boston Globe	222,156	31,018	325	408
26	The Huffington Post	165,885	16,868	455	18
27	The Christian Science Monitor	62,987	17,214	1,234	70
28	The Financial Times	36,784	3,799	244	15
29	BusinessWeek	18,200	4,259	192	31
30	The Economist	Not available	57,028	3,716	108
31	BBC World News	Not available	Not available	21,839	450

AP again dominates the competition though it is important to note that having 36K+ videos on YouTube gives them a lot more opportunity for views.

Interestingly the Los Angeles Times is #10 in subscribers but it jumps to #3 in total upload views with only 2,745 videos. Alternatively CNN has 19,514 videos and is #5 in subscribers but it falls to #10 in total upload views.

Some additional notes:

1) Surprisingly I did not find a channel for NBC News. There is a main channel for the network and multiple channels for local affiliate stations but I could not find one for NBC News.

2) I also did not find a channel for Yahoo! News or AOL News although there is a general channel for Yahoo! that does include some news videos.

3) When I try to click through on the BBC World News channel included in the table above I get a “This channel is not available” message. I’m not sure if it is because US users are not allowed to access it (as with the main BBC channel) or if the channel has been taken down. But since the 21,839 subscribers reported in YouTube’s search results make it a top 5 news channel I included it in the table. There is also a BBC World News America channel but its most recent video is from 2008. So I wonder if BBC has stopped maintaining its news channels on YouTube.

4) I also could not find a current channel for MSNBC. There is an MSNBC.com profile (called msnbcReporter) that has not been updated since 2008. And it looks like an individual grabbed the msnbc username back in 2006 for his own purposes:

Since “jonathan” was apparently hoping to use the channel to show off his dance moves I thought it only appropriate to end this post with one of his videos: