Washington Post tops 1 billion page views in May

The Washington Post announced Thursday it had 80.7 million unique visitors in May, an increase of 28 percent when compared to the same month last year, according to comScore.

Page views also exceeded 1 billion, marking a 33 percent year when compared to May 2016.

Those reading the paper are also staying longer online.

“Washington Post readers spent an average of 18.5 minutes consuming content during May, up 19 percent from last month and 9 percent year over year,” the 139-year-old paper reported.

{mosads}In terms of mobile users, the Post reports a 40 percent year-over-year increase to total 65.5 million.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013.

The Post’s traffic growth coincides with Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency and an increased interest from the public in political matters as a whole. 

The New York Times has experienced similar growth, adding 308,000 net digital news subscriptions in the first three months this year, the best in the paper’s history. 

On the broadcast side, the daily drama of the President Trump era continues to be ratings gold for all three of the major cable news networks, with combined viewing of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN up 33 percent through the first week of June compared with the same time in 2016, according to data from Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser.