Media Briefing: TikTok’s U.S. shutdown has little impact on publishers’ traffic and video strategies

TikTok’s shutdown over the weekend was short-lived, and so was its apparent impact on how people spent their time online. Publishers’ site traffic and social referral traffic did not deviate from the norm, and YouTube Shorts received a miniscule uptick in viewership, for example. 

Publishers like CNN, The Daily Mail and The Washington Post were unshaken by the whiplash of TikTok’s 12-hour shutdown on Jan. 18-19, executives at the publications said.

That’s probably good news, given the fact that this was potentially a teaser for what could happen in less than 75 days, when the extension ends. 

Publishing execs told Digiday that their focus this year is on short-form video integration and distribution on their own properties, and that their work over the years to diversify their audience development efforts across different platforms — including their own — means they are prepared for whatever happens next.

“Our strategy and approach remain consistent as we continue to operate business as usual. We’ve always prioritized diversification and avoided reliance on any single platform,” said Chris Anthony, CRO at Gallery Media Group.

The TikTok shutdown’s minimal ripple effect on web traffic

U.S. views on TikTok fell by 19.7% from Jan. 18 to Jan. 19 (to 9.62 billion), according to Tubular Labs data shared with Digiday. Meanwhile, YouTube Shorts viewership inched up by less than 1% in the same timeframe, from 6.73 billion on Jan. 18 to 6.79 billion on Jan. 19. However, that wasn’t an unusual audience stat — U.S. views of YouTube Shorts was 7.40 billion on Jan. 1, for example, according to Tubular Labs.

Web infrastructure company Cloudflare looked at domain name system (DNS) traffic to TikTok-related domains (including TikTok and other ByteDance-owned platforms, like video editor CapCut) and found that two days after the initial TikTok shutdown, DNS traffic was 7% lower than pre-shutdown levels from the week prior.

And while Cloudflare found that DNS traffic to TikTok alternatives like RedNote surged on Jan. 19 — the day the ban went into effect — by up to 74% compared to the previous week, traffic declined from there and was only 17% higher than the previous week once TikTok announced it was beginning to restore its services in the U.S. (When asked about user trends on other platforms in that time, a Cloudflare spokesperson said it was “hard to attribute general traffic spikes” to the TikTok ban.)

While TikTok viewership in the U.S. ceased during the app ban, it returned to normal levels once TikTok was live again, according to Phil Harvey, head of social video at Daily Mail.

But when TikTok was down, what did people do with that time spent online? Chartbeat data shared with Digiday shows there actually wasn’t much of a change in online behavior for publishers when TikTok was down. The publisher analytics firm found that overall U.S. traffic to over 1,100 publishers’ sites didn’t change before or after the ban.

There also wasn’t much of a change when looking at pageviews from all social traffic to over 1,000 U.S. publishers, according to Chartbeat’s analysis.

So did people head to other social media platforms while TikTok was down? 

While the Daily Mail saw an “uptick in visitors” to both YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels over the weekend, viewership on TikTok “[returned] to the status quo” once the ban was lifted, Harvey said. He declined to provide specific numbers.

Here’s how some publishers are dealing with the aftereffects of the U.S. TikTok ban:

YouTube Shorts focus

The Washington Post’s director of video Micah Gelman told Digiday that his team has been preparing for this ban for quite some time — and part of the reason why his division, which includes the Post’s TikTok team, was recently renamed to The Washington Post Universe to have the same branding across social platforms. And why his team has been focused on growing its YouTube Shorts presence. Gelman declined to quantify The Post’s YouTube Shorts viewership compared to TikTok’s, saying it varied “day to day” and that on “many days” YouTube’s audience is larger. The Post also declined to share video viewership figures from over the weekend.

“We’ve anticipated this. We’ve been planning for this. It’s something we thought was a distinct possibility, and we have been telling our audience the other places where they can find us,” he said. 

The Post has been more direct in this messaging to its TikTok viewers in videos and in the comments section, especially leading up to the app ban, Gelman said. This video posted on Dec. 6 features host Carmella Boykin directing followers to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, for example. 

In 2024, The Washington Post Universe’s channel on YouTube gained 300,000 subscribers, a 24% year-over-year increase, according to a Post spokesperson.

Testing a new video hub

Meanwhile, Daily Mail introduced a hub for all of its short-form video content on its U.S. homepage when TikTok shut down. The idea for the hub was in the works for “quite some time,” Harvey said, though he declined to share exactly how long this hub had been planned.

“Given the news of the ban, and the fact that it became increasingly likely to happen, we decided it would be an ideal time to test the initiative… While the ban didn’t last long, the hub was a fun experiment to test how we package and deliver our video content on the homepage,” Harvey said.

Harvey declined to quantify how many site visitors watched the videos on the hub while it was live during the TikTok ban.

The Daily Mail produced nearly 75 vertical videos on Monday, the day of the U.S. presidential inauguration, according to Harvey. TikTok brought in the most video views at 322 million, followed by 25 million on Instagram, 5.3 million on YouTube Shorts and 2.6 million on Facebook. The Daily Mail had less than 1 million views on X. 

TikTok not the priority over the weekend

At CNN, TikTok’s short shutdown didn’t have an impact consequential enough to spend much energy on — especially while its teams were focused on covering President Donald Trump’s inauguration over the weekend, according to a spokesperson. 

That’s especially true given that this year, CNN is focusing its video programming efforts on its own site and app, such as experimenting with more live vertical video, they added. The company is moving away from sharing videos clipped from its TV programming on digital platforms like TikTok, and instead prioritizing a more one-to-one format, such as reporters talking from their kitchens before hitting the streets.

But these three publishers have a sizable audience on TikTok — 7.2 million at CNN, 18.8 million at The Daily Mail and 1.8 million at The Washington Post. Despite that reach, the message is clear: if TikTok shuts down again, publishers will need to find ways to stay in front of those audiences.

What we’ve heard

“Some of them are monetary. Some of them are more about being part of new marketplaces that they’re developing. And to me, the part that’s the most interesting… I would rather be a part of that… I would rather we be an early partner. I believe the deal terms are only going to get worse over time.”

— Mark Howard, Time chief operating officer, on how the publisher evaluates deals with AI companies.

Numbers to know

$400 million: The drop in revenue at CNN in three years.

£97.4 million: Analysts’ forecast of Reach’s adjusted operating profit for 2024, which the publisher says it’ll beat.

71%: Newsweek.com’s year-over-year growth in unique site visitors.

143: The number of Dotdash Meredith employees being let go.

What we’ve covered

Publishers are mixed on their optimism for 2025 

• A Digiday+ Research survey found 60% of publisher pros are optimistic about their companies’ prospects for 2025, but only 28% were for the industry.
• Two-thirds think their companies’ 2025 revenues will be up year over year, with growth in ad and subscription revenues.

Read more from the Digiday+ Research survey here.

The winners and losers of TikTok’s U.S. shutdown drama

• TikTok’s rivals, Donald Trump, and advertisers and creators who rely on the platform all stand to benefit from TikTok’s unfolding drama.
• But TikTok’s U.S. staff, its users and SMBs could get the short end of the stick with a ban still looming.

Find out who else stands to gain – or lose – amid the TikTok drama here.

Copyright cases put a spotlight on Meta and OpenAI datasets

• Unsealed court documents allege Meta employees sought to remove copyright information — including headers and other identifiers — from various materials.
• Meanwhile, plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit between The New York Times and OpenAI allege tech companies stripped copyright information from content used to train AI models.

Read more about the copyright battles tech companies are facing here.

Twitch streamers worried about loss of TikTok as referral engine

• Creators on Twitch and other streaming platforms are worried about losing TikTok as a place to share clips of their livestreams,  one of the most effective ways to build an audience.
• Creators believe TikTok’s algorithm rewards smaller creators for posting clips of viral content.

Read more about what streaming platform creators stand to lose if TikTok shutdown here.

What we’re reading

More litigation against AI companies coming

The News Media Alliance, which includes members like Condé Nast and Vox Media, is preparing to take legal action against a major AI company, alleging copyright infringement, according to Semafor. The unnamed company is being blamed for copy and pasting content without attribution or license.

New York Times looks for other publishers to bundle subscription

The New York Times is looking to bundle subscriptions with smaller U.S. publishers to grow its subscriber base of 11 million, Axios reported. It’s a strategy that has been in effect to expand its international subscriptions, and will focus on its lifestyle subscription products like cooking and games.

Apple removes AI notifications for news after BBC complaints

Apple disabled AI summaries for news apps in its beta software, after the BBC said it had displayed inaccurate information in its news notifications, according to CNBC. In December, nearly two dozen BBC news notifications were combined into an incorrect three-part headline about Luigi Mangione, the man who shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Bluesky, X launch new video feeds to compete with TikTok

Social media platforms Bluesky and X launched new video feeds in the shadow of TikTok’s U.S. ban, The Verge reported. Bluesky introduced customizable video feeds, while X rolled out a video tab. 

French newspaper Le Monde leaves X

Le Monde — like the Guardian and NPR before it — will no longer post on X, according to Politico. The French newspaper’s editor-in-chief said he encourages Le Monde journalists to do the same, and blamed Elon Musk’s political activism and toxicity of the platform for the decision to leave.