Bold claim: Fox News Digital owned the year in headlines and engagement, pulling ahead of every major outlet. And this is where the numbers get interesting: the site not only had the single most engaged story of 2025, but also saw nine additional pieces crack the top 100, per Chartbeat’s year-in-review.
In plain terms, Chartbeat—a trusted traffic analytics platform for top media brands—tracked Fox News Digital’s February report on the autopsies of Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa as the year’s most engaging article out of more than 41 million pieces analyzed. That story, published on Fox News Digital, captured more audience attention than pieces from The New York Times, CNN, The BBC, The Atlantic, ABC News, CBS News, and other major outlets.
Beyond the Hackman feature, Fox News Digital also placed other high-profile items in the top 100, including coverage related to the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, wildfire events in California, and the New Year’s terrorist incident on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
The dominance extended to broad reach and time spent. In November alone, Fox News Digital tallied roughly 1.6 billion multiplatform views—surpassing The New York Times’ 1.4 billion and CNN’s 697 million—and marked the 19th consecutive month leading the field in that key metric. It also led in multiplatform minutes for the 57th straight month, registering about 3.1 billion minutes, while The Times and CNN each logged about 1.1 billion.
On YouTube, Fox News drew nearly 300 million video views in November, a figure that outpaced CNN, ABC News, CBS News, and The New York Times, and positioned Fox News for its best year yet on the platform as December approached. The Fox News Mobile app followed with 6.4 million unique viewers in November, ahead of CNN’s 3.7 million.
During a news-heavy stretch, Fox News also topped social metrics across Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and X with 108 million social interactions, according to Emplifi and Shareablee.
For transparency, Fox News Digital, CBSNews.com, NBCNews.com, WashingtonPost.com, and ABCNews.com have opted in to share social incremental data for total digital multiplatform unique visitors, while The New York Times and CNN.com have not.
If you’d like a quick, plain-language takeaway: Fox News Digital not only led in the most engaged story of the year, but consistently outperformed rivals in views, time spent, and social interactions across multiple platforms. Do you think this level of dominance reflects exclusive appeal, aggressive distribution, or a combination of both? Share your thoughts in the comments.
