Big News Month Fuels Double-Digit Audience Growth

July’s big news month powered a surge in unique viewers for top U.S. TV news creators, as data from Tubular Labs revealed. Major items like the Donald Trump assassination attempt, Joe Biden not pursuing reelection and the Olympics powered double-digit audience growth for the likes of ABC News, Fox News, NBC News, CNN and MSNBC – all of which were among July’s top 15 media & entertainment channels by unique U.S. reach across YouTube and Facebook.

A closer look into the networks’ social channels revealed: 

• For ABC News, growth was fueled in part by volume of coverage of important events, as well as strong performance for other unrelated videos (its top video of the month was about two bald eagles fighting). 
• Fox News leaned more heavily into Trump coverage, with over 40% of video uploads across YouTube and Facebook about the former president, the Republican National Convention and/or the assassination attempt.
• On NBC News, the assassination attempt and Kamala Harris news drove many of the top videos, while Harris was the primary topic for top MSNBC videos. Like NBC News, CNN’s top videos were mostly focused on Trump and Harris.