Breitbarts readership plunges
The onetime voice of the pro-Trump alt right struggles to find a niche without its driving force, Steve Bannon.
By JASON SCHWARTZ 03/20/2018 09:08 PM EDT
Breitbart, the alt-right news site whose executive chairman Steve Bannon was pushed out in January after feuding with President Donald Trump, has lost about half its readership according to comScore, raising questions about its future.
The site dropped from 15 million unique visitors in October, per comScore, to 13.7 million in November, 9.9 million in December, 8.5 million in January and 7.8 million in February. Its comScore figure for January was down 51 percent from the same month a year earlier, and the February number was down 49 percent from 2017. Last month was the site’s least trafficked since February 2015, four months before Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president.
There are several potential causes for Breitbart’s troubles, including changes to Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm, amped up investment in digital by Fox News, and the shifting status of Bannon. Once Trump’s campaign chairman, White House strategist, and closest ally, Bannon left the administration in August and returned to Breitbart, only to be forced out by the site’s board after he criticized Trump and his family in Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury.” Without its driving force, Breitbart has struggled to find a clear identity. And after a significantly diminished presence at this year’s CPAC conference, there is a growing sense that its influence is on the wane.
“As a talk radio host, I haven’t used a Breitbart story in at least six months,” said conservative commentator Erick Erickson in an email. “They have a lot of readers and lot of people reading by habit, even if not as many. But they seem less able to stimulate a conversation or move an agenda now.”
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/20/breitbart-readership-plunge-steve-bannon-474801
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I thought they mostly went there to look at the pictures. Reading gives most of their visitors a think-hurt.
