Four major news publishers in the UK and US have increased their core Tiktok followings by more than 11 million people in the last two years.
Press Gazette has updated its ranking of the biggest and fastest-growing news publisher Tiktok accounts for the first time since August 2024.
The analysis features the main Tiktok accounts for 84 news publishers, including those featured in the 2024 round-up and 16 additional newsbrands that were included in the most recent rankings of the biggest newsbrands in the UK and the US.
The additional 16 newsbrands are not included in the analysis of change in follower counts since August 2024 due to no data being available for this time. Buzzfeed also hasn’t been included as its main news account has changed its name to Buzzfeed Celeb. It has created a separate core account which now has less followers than 2024’s ranking at 123,000.
Four newsbrands are not included in ranking as they are not active on Tiktok: MSN, Google News, Breitbart and Patch. The Oxford Mail has a profile on Tiktok but has also not been included as it has not posted content since 2024.
The rankings look at each publisher’s main news-based account only, although some news outlets create separate accounts for different verticals.
The four publishers to increase their follower count by more than 11 million were led by the Daily Mail, which has seen an increase of 16.6 million followers in two years to 26.5 million for its main account, BBC News, up by 12.3 million to 16 million, Fox News, up by 11.4 million to 11.5 million, and CNN, up by 11.3 million 15.7 million.
Of these, Fox News saw the biggest percentage growth of 12,537% although that was from the smallest starting point of 91,000 two years ago.
Among those with over 100,000 followers at the time of our last update, the 2,506% growth seen by Reuters – from 176,500 followers to 4.6 million – was the largest.
The Associated Press (up 680% to 3.7 million followers), The Times and Sunday Times (up 461% to 805,100), The New York Times (up 404% to 3.8 million) and Metro (up 392% to 2.7 million) were other large accounts to more than quadruple their follower count.
Local sites, which had much smaller followings in August 2024, also saw significant percentage growth in the two years. Chronicle Live grew its followers by 1,384%, from 6,200 to 92,000. Bristol Live saw an increase of 1,052% from 2,900 to 33,400 followers in two years, while Liverpool Echo grew its followers by 358% from 128,300 to 588,200.
Around 40% (25) newsbrands included in Press Gazette’s last ranking increased their follower count by more than a million since August 2024.
Nine newsbrands increased their followers by more than five million. This was mostly US broadcasting networks including ABC News (up 9.3 million), CBS News (up 8.1 million), NBC News (up seven million) and MS Now, formerly MSNBC (up 5.7 million).
UK broadcaster Sky News just made the cut, increasing its followers by 5.1 million.
Who are the biggest news publishers on Tiktok in the UK and US?
The Daily Mail remained the publisher with the most followers at 26.5 million on its main account.
Its subsidiary accounts are also popular on Tiktok: Daily Mail Sport (6.8 million followers) and Daily Mail UK (2.9 million) would place in the top half of publisher accounts listed.
Daily Mail was followed by BBC News (16 million followers) and ABC News (15.8 million followers).
Of the 84 newsbrands included in the ranking, 35 had a following of one million or more. Nineteen have a follower count of less than 100,000.
The growth of publisher accounts on Tiktok comes as social and video platforms – including Tiktok, Facebook and Youtube – were found to have overtaken TV and news websites/apps as a news source for the first time, according to the 2026 Reuters Digital News Report.
Across social platforms, Tiktok saw the biggest growth in the past five years, up 22 percentage points to 37% of people in 47 markets saying they used it for any purpose (not just for news).
Press Gazette recently reported that Tiktok’s owner Bytedance was the fastest-growing website publisher in the UK by engagement time, with minutes spent on its platform growing 30% year on year in April to 33 billion.
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