METHODOLOGY
For the purpose of this report, the official channels belonging to media on the three main social networks in the western world (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) were analyzed.
For media with several profiles on Twitter, the sum of people following the most significant accounts was used.This report has not taken into account the official profiles of communications groups that are not media outlets per-se, as well as specific radio or television programs and/or their hosts.
The most influential media
Over half the users of social
networks use platforms such as
Facebook or Twitter to keep up to
date with current affairs (1), some
on a recurring basis. The media is
not blind to this trend, so more and
more effort is being put into the
digital realm.
Which is why, for this edition of
SocialScene, we wanted to know
which media have the most
followers on social media. Is there a
preferred type of news producer
on the Internet? Has the way we
consume news changed?
(1) Pew Research Center with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Absolute rulers. In both the Top 10, and the Top 100
rankings. This is the only possible way to describe the
presence of the USA in terms of media with the most
followers on social networks. Just one Chinese and
one British media featured in the Top 10 alongside
their American counterparts.
So, it seems that not only do American brands and
consumer habits rule the world; apparently, their
media outlets have found the perfect vehicle for
global expansion too.
Conversely, it is rather curious to take a look at the
Top of the ranking, since the number one position is
not held by a TV station, nor a powerful current affairs
newspaper, nope… It is The National Geographic, the
leading science and nature magazine. With 114
million followers, it has over 12 times more followers than the circulation of the print magazine .
10
Ranking Top 10 followers
1 National Geographic Magazine 118.212.255
2 BBC News 107.463.876
3 MTV 72.301.875
4 CNN 67.216.197
5 National Geographic TV 64.027.999
6 ESPN 59.494.975
7 The New York Times 55.019.949
8 CGTN 54.122.193
9 Discovery 51.065.806
HISTORY 45.793.906
118M1
107M2
72M3
Uncle Sam speaks to the whole world
If we tallied up the fans of just the US media outlets, including Tasty, we would have over 1,000 million followers.
Cristiano Ronaldo has more followers (238 million) than all the European media channels in the Top 100 together.
There are more people following major brands such as Facebook, Nike or FC Barcelona than there are who follow the number one media outlet on the list, National Geographic.
Number of followers per region
Based on origin, three regions divvy up the pie in terms of the media and their followers on social networks: The
USA (who, as we saw above, heads up the ranking), Asia and the Middle East, with the United Arab Emirates,
Qatar and Egypt in the starring roles.
Bearing in mind that to draw up this Top 100 ranking we only took western social networks (Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram) into account, it’s rather surprising that 4 of the 6 Chinese media in this ranking feature in the 25
most followed. It would make sense to think that, if we had also considered followers on Weibo or Renren,
China could have been head to head with the USA.
On the other hand, while 5 countries are vying for the Top 25 spots for media with the most followers, whole
continents, such as Europe or non-US-America, only get 10 media outlets each in the Top 100 ranking. In fact,
only one European media outlet is among the first 50, with the BBC’s second place, and only Brazilian Rede
Globo just makes it onto the Top 25 leader board.
The picture only changes slightly if you add the “new digital media” to the mix, though the US is still the absolu-
te dominant force, Europe does manage to draw even with China, since British Unilad or The LADbible or Irish
MetDaan feature in the Top 25. The absence of other large European countries stands out; Neither Germany or
Italy have any media in the Top 100, and only France (in addition the the UK) can claim to have more one
media in the Top 100 list.
1.100M 499M 440M 217M 172M
USA Middle East – África Asia
EuropeRest of
America
Top 100 media distributed per region
USA Asia
Europe
Rest ofAmerica
Middle east - Africa
USA
LEADING COUNTRIES:
BRAZIL U.K, FRANCE E.A.U., EGYPT, QATAR, SAUDI ARABIA CHINA, INDIA, PAKISTAN
The world map of information
We also wanted to see if the language used by the
main media outlets is equivalent to the languages
spoken around the world: at the end of the day, the
Internet allows us to communicate with every corner
of the planet, but language is a hurdle we seem to
forever trip up on.
To this end, we have contrasted the main language
of the 100 media outlets with the most followers with
the ranking of the languages spoken most spoken by
people as their first, second or foreign language.
English dominates both classifications, though in
terms of this analysis, it represents one in three of the
Top 100, and amasses almost half of the total
followers on social networks.
Arabic is far more represented in the main media
outlets than in the number of speakers, with 30 media
in the Top 100 and over 20% of total fans. Mandarin
Chinese, though it is the language of four of the main
media in the ranking, is not in the five most-used
languages in the Top 100, even though it is a langua-
ge used by over 1,030 million people worldwide.
ENGLISH ENGLISH
MANDARIN ARABIAN
SPANISH SPANISH
HINDI HINDI
ARABIAN PORTUGUESE
FRENCH MANDARIN
Languages by number of speakers
Languages by media in Top 100
Speaking in English, but not exclusively
In the overall ranking, television channels dominate
over any other type of media, occupying 59 of the
100 Top positions and accumulating even more
followers, almost 67% of the total.
The written press is the next largest group, with 15
newspapers and 10 magazines in the ranking. It is
surprising that it is precisely a magazine that heads up
the list, when only The New York Times, The People’s
Daily of China and TIME are the only other media in
the Top 20 that are not television channels.
In recent years all these media outlets have adapted
their content to the format, which in this case is the
TV
Newspapers
Digital
Magazines
Radio
3%
61%
11%
9%
16%
Media by category in Top 100
Old media, new formats
Internet: moving beyond the programmes they
broadcast or the articles they publish, they have had
to reinvent themselves in web versions and practically
create a new media outlet, editing their content into
small morsels or even creating multimedia pieces that
are not at all in line with their tradition.
All of this aimed at penetrating another channel,
where there are more and more users, that are
especially active and that are increasingly essential
to re-broadcast the information from media outlets to
new audiences.
In a Top 100 dominated by general and entertainment media (film, series, kids’ content…), we see that the
remaining third of our ranking is made up of media specialized in different areas (sports, lifestyle, general interest
and cooking). However, the arrival of digital media has been a game-changer.
The digital revolution has witnessed the birth of new media, and those who up until now had dominated the
market were beginning to suffer the consumers’ preference for specialization. The figures show that interest in
current affairs and politics was declining, and entertainment media were faring no better as they also were also
slipping out of the Top 100.
Filling the void, the information market has become increasingly distributed and balanced, thanks to the
growing popularity of subject matters that until now had always been anecdotal. The result of this change of
trend is that the number of media outlets dedicated to general interest subjects has doubled within the Top 100,
with history, nature and health subject matters standing out especially.
The true bombshell came with gastronomy. It seems that something’s ‘cooking up a storm’ in the digital world.
The media outlets devoted to cooking and ‘quick & easy’ recipes have experienced tremendous growth (1% to
8% of the market share) and a new site called Tasty, started in 2015, is third in our ranking, trampling on well-esta-
blished media outlets such as CNN, MTV and The New York Times in terms of number of followers. One might think
that the tendency towards healthier living has had something to do with it, but a quick glance at these channels
reveals that the true recipe for success is the secret desires that many of us admit to having: desserts, chocolate
and cheese.
General-interest
Entretainment
Lifestyle
Science & Nature
Sport
Music
Food
Healthcare
WITHOUT new digital media WITH new digital media
Top 100 media by genre
Beyond infotainment
We have already seen how Europe is one of the
regions with less presence in the Top 100, with the
exception of the BBC, but let’s take a closer look at
the European media with the greatest digital
following:
EUROPEAN MEDIA (Traditional) followers
10
1 BBC News 103.459.673
2 BBC Sport 20.188.879
3 Sky Sports 16.346.672
4 France 24 arabic 14.888.539
5 RT Arabic 14.703.054
6 El País 13.003.029
7 Daily Mail 12.125.566
8 Le Monde 11.173.557
9 France 24 11.137.386
বিবিসি বাং লা - BBC Bangla 10.611.214
A large chunk of the audience lives outside European borders (Arab countries, Latin America or even Bangladesh)
ENGLISH and ARABIC, are the main languages.
DIGITAL REVOLUTION: As many as five new media outlets have emerged in the UK and Ireland that surpass all the traditional media in number of followers, except for BBC News and BBC Sports. MetDaan, an Irish media outlet focusing on style and beauty tips and tutorials, weighs in at number 15 in the worldwide ranking!
Only 4 countries are represented in the Top 10: UK, France, Russia and Spain.
BBC power: 50% of the total number of people following European media are
following the BBC.
El País, the only Spanish media outlet in the ranking, owes its influence on social
networks to the sum of followers on more than 25 Twitter accounts
European overview: London calling
In the Top 100 of the world’s most followed media, it is
curious that just 10 are based in Latin America.Rest of America
ENTERTAINMENT: is the focus of around 70% of media outlets in Latin America. A trend that could imply the use of these media as a way to disconnect, rather than a window on current affairs.
REDE GLOBO: The leading media in the rest of the American Continent, and the sole representative of Latin America in the Top 25.
PORTUGUESE: Despite Spanish being the most widely spoken language on the Continent, the media outlets that are
successful in terms of influence and followers are mostly from Brazil and
Portuguese-speaking (60% of the total).
TRADITIONAL MEDIA: Contrary to the global trend, the king of media is televi-
sion (the Top 3 media in our ranking are TV stations). The conclusions hardly vary even when we take into account digital media.
DIGITAL COOKING: Digital Media speciali-zed in cooking and ‘quick & easy’ recipes
stand out as a category that is on the up and up round the globe.
10
1 Rede Globo 30.878.533
2 SBT 20.665.027
3 Multishow 20.469.269
4 Portal R7 19.331.896
5 Esporte Interativo 19.200.988
6 Aristegui Noticias 14.836.829
7 Gshow - O Entretenimento da Globo 14.173.823
8 TeleHit 13.834.000
9 MUSIQUERA TU MEJOR COMPAÑERA 12.044.609
TN Todo Noticias 11.615.564
Latin American media: Brazil and it’s scope of influence
followers
YouTube has become, in a very short time, the most
important platform for content consumption in the
world, with over one billion users (2). In countries such
as the United States, many more people aged 18 to
49 choose to watch YouTube instead of cable
television. Is it the proverbial dragon that traditional
television stations have to slay?
Many television stations have opted to create their
own a-la-carte content platforms, where users have
to register so they can gain access to exclusive
content. Other stations have teamed up with YouTu-
be to distribute part of their content and take advan-
tage of the world-wide pull the service has to attract
more viewers.
And it seems that television content isn’t dead yet:
four of the Top ten viral videos last year are fragments
of television programs that were uploaded by TV
stations, with a marked musical tendency: from the
12-year-old girl with her ukulele on America’s Got
Talent to James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke with
Adele, which has rustled up over 153 million views
and nearly two million likes.
10
1 Carpool Karaoke with Adele 153.028.099 1.878.036
2 Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen/PIKO-TARO 117.615.978 530.106
3 What's Inside a Rattlesnake Rattle? 68.115.923 261.753
4 Nike Football Presents: The Switch ft. Cristiano Ronaldo 61.665.878 329.183
5 Grace VanderWaal: 12-Year-Old Ukelele Player 55.160.693 644.049
6 Water Bottle Flip Edition 53.727.504 848.607
7 Channing Tatum vs. Jenna Dewan Tatum's Lip Sync 39.658.702 272.544
8 Donald Trump: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 31.933.372 474.942
9 The $21,000 First Class Airplane Seat 34.211.213 502.983
Brothers Convince Little Sister of Zombie Apocalypse 22.980.050 223.953
Top Trending videos 2016 views likes
YouTube and TV: Dangerous liaisons
(2) https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/es/statistics.html
In short, both traditional and new media want maximum dissemina-
tion among their readers, through social networks. So, how do the
best do it?
The worldwide number 1, National Geographic, has always focused
on high quality, spectacular visuals: using video as a fundamentally
important element, despite being a magazine.
Focusing on video is also what has taken Tasty from fledgling website
to one of the most followed media outlets. They have understood
how to apply well-known marketing techniques that result in a massi-
ve response from followers, such as surveys and rankings, however,
the key to their success, their hallmark, is most certainly their video
recipes.
A “recipe” that more and more media have followed: very visual
content, preferably lasting under a minute and a half, with just one
key idea and very little text. In Tasty community terms: short and
sweet is 100 million times better.
Conclusions: The secret of the most social media outlets
1 National Geographic Magazine 118.212.2552 BBC News 107.463.8763 MTV 72.301.8754 CNN 67.216.1975 National Geographic TV 64.027.9996 ESPN 59.494.9757 The New York Times 55.019.9498 CGTN 54.122.1939 Discovery 51.065.80610 HISTORY 45.793.906 11 CCTV 41.686.42012 People's Daily, China 39.697.44713 Al Jazeera Channel - 34.548.987 ةريزجلا ةانقAl Arabiya 33.524.617 ةيبرعلا ةانق 1415 Nickelodeon 32.781.16016 Rede Globo 30.878.53317 Fox News 30.720.27918 Cartoon Network 29.724.82219 TIME 29.555.81120 E! News 29.023.17121 CNN en Español 27.919.85722 China Xinhua News 27.039.11723 MBC1 27.024.52024 Food Network 25.895.17725 MBC 24.101.57326 Aaj Tak 23.688.19627 Playboy 23.561.11628 beIN SPORTS 22.492.69922.364.674 عباسلا مويلا 2930 Animal Planet 22.309.96831 FOX 22.268.22332 CNN International 22.010.15533 ABC News 21.980.00034 NTD Television (New Tang Dynasty Television) 21.921.62935 ABP News 21.530.53136 SBT 20.665.02737 The Times of India 20.471.75238 Multishow 20.469.26939 MBC4 20.278.84340 BBC Sport 20.188.87941 ABS-CBN News 19.603.69819.455.112 (Hawaa World Magazine) ءاوح ملاع ةلجم 4243 Portal R7 19.331.89644 Esporte Interativo 19.200.988Akhbar Al Aan 17.834.596 - نآلا رابخا 4546 HISTORY [en español] 17.744.04217.492.357 (Eyes News Network) ةيرابخإلا نويع ةكبش 4748 Telemundo 16.935.92949 Sky Sports 16.346.67250 Zoom TV 16.134.334
51 PTV Sports 15.890.237Aljazeera Mubasher Channel 15.685.388 - رشابم ةريزجلا ةانق 5215.610.150 ةيئاضفلا أرقا ةانق 5354 Virgin Radio Lebanon 15.498.19455 MTV India 15.389.14456 Ounousa.com 15.345.74757 MBC Action 15.340.92558 France 24 arabic 14.888.53959 Aristegui Noticias 14.836.82960 7Day News Journal 14.832.65961 YAN News 14.804.91162 RT Arabic 14.703.05463 Sky News Arabia 14.699.412 ةيبرع زوين ياكس64 HBO 14.691.05065 CBC Egypt 14.550.56666 COLORS TV 14.410.94867 sayidaty.net 14.407.646 تن.يتديس68 National Geographic Abu Dhabi 14.379.99369 FOX Deportes 14.256.05470 Gshow - O Entretenimento da Globo 14.173.82371 Express News 14.134.83272 ARY News 14.039.39673 TeleHit 13.834.00074 HESPRESS 13.813.02675 Dainik Jagran 13.761.74776 USA TODAY 13.516.03177 GMA Network 13.403.70913.393.343 مويلا يرصملا 7879 MTVLA 13.334.82913.211.230 دصر ةكبش 8081 BuzzFeed Video 13.174.00113.147.611 نطولا رابخأ 8283 MBC BOLLYWOOD 13.088.80984 Akhbarak.net 13.018.43885 Inked Magazine 13.011.18486 El País 13.003.02987 Disney Channel Latinoamérica 12.920.57688 Prothom Alo 12.198.59489 Daily Mail 12.125.56690 Khaosod 12.071.17391 MUSIQUERA TU MEJOR COMPAÑERA 12.044.60992 China Daily 11.971.08593 Upworthy 11.666.54494 TN Todo Noticias 11.615.56495 Layalina | 11.568.073 انيلايل96 Chouf TV 11.464.71097 Telecine 11.441.71411.320.985 ةيقار رطاوخ ةلجم 9899 Radio One Lebanon 11.197.343100 Le Monde 11.173.557
Top 100 media by number of followers
by apple tree communications
The popularity and impact of online influencers has
increased relentlessly due to the inexorable rise of
social media. That’s why at apple tree communica-
tion we have been analysing the statistics and the
trends behind the different social media platforms
out there over the last 5 years. This ongoing study has
given us an expertise in understanding who the real
influencers are, based not only on the number of
followers, but also on the capacity they have to
generate high impact, highly shareable content.
Their influence is increasing exponentially and as such
they are a key element in the development of digital
or integrated communication campaigns.
WHAT’S THE SOCIALSCENE?
A report created by apple tree communications in
which we analyse the evolution of social media
We follow:
“Top 100”, people with the most social media fans
and followers in the UK and the World: the influence
leaders.
Leading brands on social media
What do people talk about in social networks
News and trends in social communication
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