US news agency Associated Press reached record audiences in 2024 after relaunching its consumer-facing news website the year before.
APNews.com received 2.6 billion page views in 2024, up 39% compared to the year before, according to figures shared by the publisher and agency.
Press Gazette understands its direct-to-consumer revenue, including advertising, grew by more than 20% as a result.
The AP has had a consumer-facing platform for about ten years but it has seen significant investments since 2023.
The agency is currently undergoing a drive to diversify its revenues away from a reliance on its core business of licensing content to publishers, which made up 82% of revenue in 2023. Two major US publishers, Gannett and McClatchy, ended their AP wire contracts last year and in November AP announced plans to cut 8% of its staff as it responded to the “evolving needs of our customers”.
In June 2023, the AP announced a major site relaunch and redesign to build more of a presence under its own brand and grow its advertising revenues.
Associated Press audiences respond to publisher’s ‘core’ topics
Senior vice president and executive editor Julie Pace told Press Gazette: “We think that there’s a need for the kind of journalism that the AP produces: fact-based, non-partisan, global journalism, and I think what’s been really gratifying about this past year is seeing that the audience is responding to that.”
Pace was keen to emphasise that the AP of today is a “multi-format, digital-first news report” producing photos, video, text, graphics, live video, data visualisation and interactive content.
In addition it is learning from the success of the content on its consumer-facing site to inform what it produces for its wire clients.
She described the website as a “sandbox to be able to experiment with digital story forms that we can then also be transmitting to our customers – because we’re not leaving our B2B business, we’re just trying to make sure that our B2B customers are also getting content that is very digitally focused.”
In video, the AP’s Youtube views were up 94% year on year to a record 590 million in 2024, while its Youtube subscribers grew by almost one million or 78% to 3.5 million – making it the 51st biggest English-language news publisher on the platform. Its watch time grew by 255% compared to 2023, with more than 22 million hours watched.
In addition the AP’s livestream views were up more than 430%, the publisher said.
Pace said the stats for 2024 show “the audience is really engaged with the things that are really core to who we are at the AP” giving as examples the US election, the Paris Olympics, big breaking news, extreme weather events and conflicts around the world.
“These are things that the AP has done throughout our history and we’re one of very few news organisations that is on the ground in as many places as we are.
“And I think so much of this last year has been really about making sure that people know we’re there and making sure that we are there delivering news from those places in ways that will engage digital audiences.”
There has been some “light marketing” but most of that awareness-driving has been through promoting AP content on social media and working on the site’s SEO. As a result, Pace said, “AP” and “AP elections” trended in search around the US election in November “which was a sign that people wanted to know what the AP was saying”.
November was the AP’s biggest month for online audience, reaching a record 382 million page views with two record-breaking days on Election Day and the following 24 hours.
Tuesday 5 November saw 87 million page views to APNews.com and this was beaten on 6 November by 92 million page views. The site’s US elections live blog was its most-viewed single piece of content across the year.
According to Similarweb, www.apnews.com had 93m visits in December (up 55% year on year) making it the 13th most popular news website in the US.
The AP also highlighted the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Hurricane Milton hitting Florida, the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and Venezuela’s presidential election as topics that drove traffic.
AP boosts reader donations by highlighting nonpartisan nature
Pace noted that the AP’s advertising revenues have increased as a result of the audience growth – as have reader donations which exceeded their year-end target after the news provider “ramped up” efforts towards the end of 2024.
[Read more: Advertising, philanthropy and AI: How the AP is diversifying its revenue streams]
“We’re really gratified that we see readers responding to calls to action that are rooted in the notion of AP being independent, being a 179-year-old news organisation that covers the biggest stories of the world,” Pace said.
“We really embrace that, it is core to who we are, our mission, and we’re seeing people respond both with their engagement in our content, but also with their donations.”
Multiple news publishers including The Guardian used the re-election of Donald Trump and their concerns about his second term as a campaign message for donations or subscriptions. But the AP, Pace said, was not “oppositional” in the same way.
Instead what the AP has leaned into, she said, is that “we are one of the very few news organisations that prides itself on reaching people across the political spectrum”.
On Tuesday, the day after President Trump was inaugurated for his second term, a banner on the AP website asking users to donate said: “Administrations change, our mission endures. AP delivers accurate, nonpartisan reporting that holds power to account and informs four billion people daily. Support independent journalism.”
Pace added: “We’ve leaned into the fact that when you come to the AP site, you’re going to get fact-based information. We don’t take a position other than to support the facts. We’re not trying to tell people how to vote, who’s good or who’s bad.
“But if you want to get just a clear eyed view of what’s factual, that’s what you can get from the AP so in that sense, yes, we see this as an important moment for the AP, but that’s what we’ve done throughout our whole history. I think what we’re hopeful of is that that mission that’s so core to who we are is a good match for what audiences are seeking right now.”
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