RT ARABIC ONLINE NEWS PROJECT NUMBER ONE AMONG COMPETITORS ON FACEBOOK
MOSCOW, NOVEMBER 20, 2018—Within a year of launching, RT Arabic’s interactive news project RT Online has outperformed Al Jazeera’s AJ+ and other Arabic-language news channels in terms of audience engagement and growth on Facebook.
According to the analytical platform CrowdTangle, over the course of the past year, the Facebook page for RT Arabic’s interactive news project RT Online had a higher users’ combined average interaction rate and greater page “like” growth than Al Jazeera’s online project AJ+, as well as the Facebook page of Al Arabiya and the Arabic-language pages of BBC, DW, France24 and Sky News.
“In just one year, RT Online has left all of its competitors behind in terms of audience engagement, which is one of the most important criteria on Facebook. Our project is erasing borders, and now RT viewers can share news in a live broadcast. To make watching RT Online on smartphones more convenient, we now broadcast in a vertical format,” said Head of RT Arabic Maya Manna.
RT Online was established in honor of RT Arabic’s 10-year anniversary in 2017. To mark a year since its launch, RT Online aired its very first video in portrait orientation, the best format for viewing on mobile devices. RT Online gives audiences the unique opportunity to take part in news broadcasts in real time by sharing events they’ve witnessed firsthand.
RT Arabic’s Facebook page has reached over 15 mln “likes”, surpassing the Arabic-language versions of other global broadcasters, such as CNN, BBC, Sky News, DW, France 24, and Euronews.
In October 2018, RT Arabic became the first broadcaster of non-Arabic origin in the region to generate over one billion views on YouTube, leaving behind the Arabic versions of CNN, BBC, and DW, among others.
According to SimilarWeb, among all Arabic-language television news channels, RT Arabic’s website has received the most visits since March 2018, as well as the greatest number of unique visitors for each of the past five months, leaving behind Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.
