The Daily Mail and GB News saw the biggest percentage growth in Instagram followers in the last two years, Press Gazette analysis can reveal, with the third spot taken by US tabloid The New York Post.
Press Gazette has updated its ranking of the biggest and fastest-growing news publisher Instagram accounts for the first time since August 2024, revealing that two of the most prominent right-leaning newsbrands in the UK have topped the rankings. TV network GB News in particular saw massive growth on the platform.
The analysis features the main Instagram accounts for 89 news publishers including those featured in our 2024 rankings plus 40 more newsbrands from our recent rankings of the biggest newsbrands in the UK and the US, although these are excluded from our two-year follower growth analysis as data was not available in 2024.
The rankings look at each publisher’s main news-based account only, although some news outlets create separate accounts for different verticals. Google News, the Drudge Report and US Weekly do not feature, despite being in the top 50s, due to either not being active or not having an account on the platform.
Five publishers had more than ten million followers in August 2026, up from four publishers in August 2024. BBC News had the most followers – the only publisher to tip over 30 million with 30.6 million followers, followed by CNN (23.4 million), New York Times (20.3 million) and People (14.8 million).
Fox News has joined the ten million-plus followers club with 12.2 million, up from 9.4 million in 2024.
Comparatively, eight news publishers are seeing more than ten million followers on Tiktok, though the highest follower count is the Daily Mail’s at 26.5 million – less than the BBC’s Instagram count.
While GB News (1.3 million followers) ranked 43rd of the top 89 news publishers on Instagram, it recorded the biggest percentage growth in the last two years with a 317% increase from 312,000.
This growth was followed by titles that also produce right-leaning content: the Daily Mail, up 129% to 4.8 million followers, and the New York Post, up 117% to 2.6 million.
The New York Post saw higher year-on-year growth (32%) and two-year growth (75%) in the 2024 round-up too.
Left-leaning newsbrand The Independent more than doubled its follower count since August 2024, up 101% to 1.8 million.
News broadcasters Channel 4 News (868,000 followers), and ITV News (954,000 followers) almost doubled their follower counts in the two-year period, up 91% and 86% respectively.
Three publishers – Unilad (5.7 million), USA Today (3.7 million) and Good Housekeeping (1.1 million) – saw their follower count remain flat over the period, while Buzzfeed was the only publisher to lose followers, down 4% to 5.5 million.
Buzzfeed also recorded the biggest decline in followers in 2024, with a year-on-year drop of 7%.
Around 17% of newsbrands (15 in total) included in Press Gazette’s last Instagram ranking increased their follower count by more than one million since August 2024.
Five newsbrands increased their followers by more than two million, with CNN recording the biggest absolute increase, adding 3.4 million followers to reach 23.4 million. This was followed by BBC News and Fox News, both up by 2.8 million followers.
The Daily Mail (up by 2.7 million to 4.8 million) and The New York Times (up by 2.1 million to 20.3 million) also saw significant growth.
Who are the biggest news publishers on Instagram in the UK and US?
The five publishers with the highest number of Instagram followers remain the same as Press Gazette’s previous ranking.
BBC News had the most amount of followers, followed by CNN, the NYT, People and Fox News. New entrants Al Jazeera English (9.7 million followers) and NPR (8.3 million) ranked sixth and seventh.
Along with Forbes (7.7 million followers), the two outlets overtook the Washington Post which previously held the sixth spot.
Most of the newsbrands with less than 500,000 Instagram followers did not feature in the 2024 round-up. Local news titles including the Oxford Mail (12,600 followers), Patch (16,300), Examiner Live (19,100), Newsbreak (26,100) and KSL (36,900) placed at the bottom of the ranking.
Though Instagram’s growth has been slower than that of Tiktok since 2021, it is still more widely used (53% use it for any purpose) according to Reuters’ 2026 Digital News Report.
The growth of publisher accounts on Instagram comes as social and video platforms – including Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube – were found to have overtaken TV and news websites/apps as a news source for the first time.
Across social media platforms, Instagram saw the second-biggest rise in growth in the past five years (up 11 percentage points) behind Tiktok, and it is used by 23% of people for news.
Press Gazette recently reported that Instagram’s owner Meta, was the biggest website publisher in the UK by engagement time, with minutes spent on its platform growing 14% year on year in April to 122 billion. Meta also owns Facebook, Threads and WhatsApp social media platforms.
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