Breitbart’s readership drops in half in six months

Breitbart News is experiencing a massive decline in traffic, Politico reports, losing about half its total readership in just six months.

Figures gathered from the analytics service comScore show the right-wing news website’s traffic has plunged from 15 million unique visitors in October to just 7.8 million in February, according to the news outlet.

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Former Breitbart employees and analysts told Politico that many former readers are likely finding a home at Fox News, which has recently expanded its digital operation and has attracted as many as 90 million unique visitors per month.

“A big part of Breitbart’s success was that there was a niche to be filled that Fox News was not able to fill at that point,” Rob Faris, research director at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, told Politico. 

“The role, the importance of Breitbart is diminished,” he added. “Fox News is the gorilla in the room.”

Breitbart representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill on the site’s current traffic numbers.

The decline in traffic comes amid a boycott of Breitbart’s advertisers.

“From an advertising perspective yes, very clearly,” Todd Krizelman, CEO of MediaRadar, which helps web firms increase ad sales, told Politico when asked if Breitbart was in trouble.

Former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro also pointed to the ouster of former chairman Stephen Bannon for the drop in traffic.

“They hitched their wagon to Trump, but more importantly, they hitched their wagon to Bannon,” he said. “And when Bannon left, what was the character of the site going to be? That was always a serious question.”