---
title: "News Website Speed 2026: 80% of Top Outlets Pass CWV"
description: "Original PageSpeed Matters analysis of 49 major news outlets: 80% pass Core Web Vitals on mobile, the fastest sector. The famous failures fail on layout shift, not loading."
lang: en
json-ld: |
[
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "News Website Speed: the Biggest Outlets Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time",
"datePublished": "2026-07-16",
"dateModified": "2026-07-16",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Matt Suffoletto",
"jobTitle": "Performance Optimization Expert",
"url": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/author/matt-suffoletto"
}
},
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "BreadcrumbList",
"itemListElement": [
{
"@type": "ListItem",
"position": 1,
"name": "Home",
"item": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/"
},
{
"@type": "ListItem",
"position": 2,
"name": "Resources",
"item": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources"
},
{
"@type": "ListItem",
"position": 3,
"name": "Data Studies",
"item": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies"
},
{
"@type": "ListItem",
"position": 4,
"name": "News Website Speed: the Biggest Outlets Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time"
}
]
},
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Dataset",
"name": "News Website Speed: the Biggest Outlets Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time",
"description": "Original PageSpeed Matters analysis of 49 major news outlets: 80% pass Core Web Vitals on mobile, the fastest sector. The famous failures fail on layout shift, not loading.",
"url": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/news-website-speed",
"creator": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "PageSpeed Matters",
"url": "https://www.pagespeedmatters.com"
},
"datePublished": "2026-07-16",
"dateModified": "2026-07-16",
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"isAccessibleForFree": true,
"creativeWorkStatus": "Published",
"variableMeasured": "Core Web Vitals pass rate and web performance metrics",
"measurementTechnique": "Chrome UX Report (CrUX) real-user field data"
},
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How fast are news websites and how many pass Core Web Vitals?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "The World's Biggest News Sites Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time."
}
},
{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "How was this measured?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Chrome UX Report (CrUX) real-user field data (May 2026). 49 of the biggest news and media outlets worldwide, each measured on its busiest web property, on mobile at the 75th percentile against Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds. This is a flagship-brands sample, not a census of every news site, so small and local news typically does worse."
}
}
]
}
]
---
[](/)
- [Benefits](/why-speed-matters)
- [Services](/services)
- [ROI Calculator](/roi)
- [Pricing](/pricing)
- [Proof](/proof)
- [Resources](/resources)
- [About](/about)
[Speed Audit](/contact)
[Let's Talk](/contact)
[](/)
[Benefits](/why-speed-matters)[Services](/services)[ROI Calculator](/roi)[Pricing](/pricing)[Proof](/proof)[Resources](/resources)[About](/about)
Popular Services
[
Core Web Vitals Optimization ](/services/core-web-vitals-optimization)[
WordPress Speed Optimization ](/services/wordpress-speed-optimization)[
WooCommerce Speed Optimization ](/services/woocommerce-speed-optimization)[
Shopify Speed Optimization ](/services/shopify-speed-optimization)[
Wix Speed Optimization ](/services/wix-speed-optimization)[
BigCommerce Speed Optimization ](/services/bigcommerce-speed-optimization)[
Webflow Speed Optimization ](/services/webflow-speed-optimization)[
Squarespace Speed Optimization ](/services/squarespace-speed-optimization)
[Book a Call](/contact)
[Home](/) [Resources](/resources) [Data Studies](/resources/data-studies) News Website Speed: the Biggest Outlets Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time
Data Study · News
# News Website Speed: the Biggest Outlets Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time
Written by [Matt Suffoletto](/resources/author/matt-suffoletto)
Published July 16, 2026 7 min read
Share
[](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fnews-website-speed&text=News%20Website%20Speed%3A%20the%20Biggest%20Outlets%20Pass%20Core%20Web%20Vitals%2080%25%20of%20the%20Time)[](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fnews-website-speed)[](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fnews-website-speed)[](https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fnews-website-speed&title=News%20Website%20Speed%3A%20the%20Biggest%20Outlets%20Pass%20Core%20Web%20Vitals%2080%25%20of%20the%20Time)
On This Page
- [Methodology](#methodology-source "Methodology")
- [Key Findings](#key-findings "Key Findings")
- [Summary](#summary "Summary")
- [What the Data Covers](#what-the-data-covers "What the Data Covers")
- [The Fastest Sector on the](#news-is-the-fastest-sector-we-measured "The Fastest Sector on the")
- [The Famous Names That Fail](#the-famous-names-that-fail-and-why "The Famous Names That Fail")
- [What to Fix](#what-to-fix-if-you-run-a-content-site "What to Fix")
- [Embed & cite](#embed "Embed & cite")
- [FAQ](#faq "FAQ")
Share this post
[](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fnews-website-speed&text=News%20Website%20Speed%3A%20the%20Biggest%20Outlets%20Pass%20Core%20Web%20Vitals%2080%25%20of%20the%20Time)[](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fnews-website-speed)[](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fnews-website-speed)[](https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagespeedmatters.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fnews-website-speed&title=News%20Website%20Speed%3A%20the%20Biggest%20Outlets%20Pass%20Core%20Web%20Vitals%2080%25%20of%20the%20Time)
Are news sites bloated and slow? We measured 49 major outlets. 80% pass Core Web Vitals on mobile, ahead of every other sector we measured and roughly eight times the software industry's rate. The failures are the prestige titles, undone by ad-driven layout shift.
Analysis of 49 outlets · CrUX, May 2026
Part of our [Website Speed by Industry 2026](/resources/statistics/by-industry) research.
## Methodology & Source
Data source
Chrome UX Report (CrUX) real-user field data
Collection date
May 2026
Notes
49 of the biggest news and media outlets worldwide, each measured on its busiest web property, on mobile at the 75th percentile against Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds. This is a flagship-brands sample, not a census of every news site, so small and local news typically does worse.
## Key Findings
1. 1. [**80%** of major news and media sites pass Core Web Vitals on mobile (39 of 49). That is the fastest sector we have measured, and roughly eight times the software industry's 10%. ](#news-is-the-fastest-sector-on-the-web) Copy stat
2. 2. [News sites load fast: **96%** have good LCP. The stereotype of the ad-bloated, crawling news site does not hold for the major outlets. ](#news-is-the-fastest-sector-on-the-web) Copy stat
3. 3. [When a news site fails, it is usually **layout shift or responsiveness**, not loading. The failures cluster on CLS and INP, driven by ads and embeds that move or block the page. ](#the-famous-names-that-fail-and-why) Copy stat
4. 4. [The prestige titles are the ones failing. One **national daily posts a catastrophic 1.00 CLS**, and other major financial, wire, and tabloid outlets are among the ten that miss. ](#the-famous-names-that-fail-and-why) Copy stat
5. 5. [**Tech media are the very fastest**: the quickest tech-press site loads in 0.8 seconds, with other major technology outlets close behind, a pointed contrast with the software companies they cover. ](#news-is-the-fastest-sector-on-the-web) Copy stat
6. 6. [The fastest major papers load in about **0.9 seconds** at the 75th percentile, faster than most corporate homepages, let alone most apps. ](#news-is-the-fastest-sector-on-the-web) Copy stat
## Summary
Everyone knows news sites are slow: ad-stuffed, pop-up-ridden, endlessly reloading. Everyone is wrong, at least about the big ones. Four in five major news outlets pass Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile, which makes news the fastest sector we have measured. The technology companies whose products the tech press reviews pass just 10% of the time. The reporters are faster than the software they cover.
That speed is not decoration. For a publisher, load time is the difference between a reader who scans three articles and one who bounces before the first paragraph renders, and it feeds directly into ad impressions, subscription conversions, and the search ranking that sends new readers in the door. Google treats loading, responsiveness, and stability as ranking signals, so a fast site earns visibility as well as attention. The biggest outlets have spent a decade learning this the expensive way, and the field data shows the lesson took.
These numbers come from Google's Chrome User Experience Report, the real-user field data collected from the Chrome browsers of actual visitors, the same signals Google's ranking systems use. We pulled it for 49 of the biggest outlets on earth, each measured on its busiest web property, so this is the real-world experience their readers get rather than a lab score.
## What the data covers
The sample is 49 of the biggest news and media outlets worldwide, global broadcasters, national papers, wire services, and tech and entertainment press, each measured on its busiest property, on mobile at the 75th percentile against Google's [Core Web Vitals](/resources/guides/complete-core-web-vitals-guide) thresholds. This is a flagship-brands sample, the best-resourced outlets in the field. Passing means clearing all three metrics at once: good loading (Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds), good responsiveness (Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds), and good visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1), for the three-quarters of real visitors who define the typical experience.
## News is the fastest sector we measured
The slow news site is one of the web's most durable stereotypes, and for a certain kind of local paper or content farm it is still deserved. But among the 49 biggest outlets, 80% passed on mobile, comfortably ahead of retail, finance, and, by a wide margin, software. Being fast turns out to be about shipping a light page, not about being a technology company, and the newsrooms have out-engineered the engineers.
The loading numbers are the surprise. Ninety-six percent of these sites have good Largest Contentful Paint, the metric people assume ads and images destroy. The fastest major papers render their main content in about 0.9 seconds at the 75th percentile, and the quickest tech-press site does it in 0.8. The biggest outlets have built serious performance operations, global CDNs, image pipelines, edge caching, and the discipline the AMP era beat into publishers, and it shows in the field data. When a major news site fails, it is almost never on loading.
80%
Share of major news sites that pass Core Web Vitals on mobile (39 of 49), the fastest sector we have measured. Copy stat
Core Web Vitals pass rate by sector (mobile)
Major news sites
80%
The web overall
40%
Software (SaaS)
10%
Source: Source: PageSpeed Matters, 49 major news brands vs the whole-web average and our industries study, CrUX field data, May 2026.
News passes roughly eight times as often as the software industry it covers. Being fast is about shipping a light page, not about being a technology company.
Copy chart embed Download PNG
The fastest news sites on the web (mobile LCP)
Tech news site
0.8s
News magazine
0.9s
National newspaper
0.9s
Digital news outlet
1.1s
Business news site
1.1s
National daily
1.1s
Tech news site
1.2s
Startup news site
1.2s
Source: Source: PageSpeed Matters, 75th-percentile mobile LCP for eight of the fastest major outlets, CrUX field data, May 2026. Good is at or under 2.5s.
The tech press loads in about a second, a sharp contrast with the software it reviews. Every site here clears the 2.5-second good line with room to spare.
Copy chart embed Download PNG
## The famous names that fail, and why
The slow news site reputation comes from the failures, which are loud and famous. The ten outlets that miss are disproportionately the prestige titles, and with a couple of exceptions they do not fail on loading. They fail on stability and responsiveness. The most extreme number in the whole dataset is one prestige national daily's [layout shift](/resources/guides/complete-core-web-vitals-guide#cls): a Cumulative Layout Shift of 1.00, which means the page visibly jumps as it settles, almost certainly from [ads and embeds](/resources/data-studies/social-embeds-widgets-core-web-vitals) loading into unreserved space. That paper loads quickly. It just will not hold still.
The pattern repeats across the failing set. A major financial-news site misses on a mix of loading and shift, a global wire service on responsiveness with a 350-millisecond INP, and two other prestige titles on layout shift. This is the modern ad-tech tax: third-party ads and embeds that move the layout or tie up the main thread after the content itself has already arrived. It trips even excellent, well-funded sites, and it is a different problem from the one the stereotype describes.
**Outlet type**
**LCP**
**INP**
**CLS**
**Fails on**
Prestige national daily
2.2s
150ms
1.00
Layout shift
Financial news site
2.9s
125ms
0.25
Loading plus shift
Global wire service
1.9s
350ms
0.00
Responsiveness
Weekly news magazine
2.3s
100ms
0.25
Layout shift
Tabloid daily
2.7s
300ms
0.40
Everything
News agency
2.3s
225ms
0.05
INP
The prestige outlets are not slow to load. They are unstable, and in a couple of cases slow to respond.
1.00
One prestige national daily's Cumulative Layout Shift, the most extreme number in the whole dataset. The page loads quickly but visibly jumps as ads and embeds settle. Copy stat
## What to fix if you run a content site
If you publish anything, the encouraging part is that fast is clearly achievable: 80% of the biggest, most ad-supported outlets on earth pass on mobile, and 96% have good loading. Your loading is probably already fine, or fixable with a CDN and image discipline, the same operations that let the fastest major papers render in about 0.9 seconds and the quickest tech-press site in 0.8. Being fast turned out to be about shipping a light page, not about being a technology company, which is how a newsroom out-passes the software industry eight to one.
Your real risk is the prestige-paper problem, not the stereotype's. The outlets that fail here fail on stability and responsiveness, a 1.00 CLS at one national daily and a 350-millisecond INP at one wire service, driven by ads and embeds that shift the layout or block the main thread after the content has already arrived. Reserve space for every ad slot and embed, defer the non-critical third parties, and you close the one failure mode that trips even excellent, well-funded sites. If you still assume news sites are slow, recalibrate against the field data: the tech press is loading in about a second.
## Embed this research
Paste this on your site to embed the chart. It links back to the source automatically.
Source: News Website Speed: the Biggest Outlets Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time - PageSpeed Matters
Copy embed code
## Cite this study
APA Copy
Matt Suffoletto. (2026). News Website Speed: the Biggest Outlets Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time. PageSpeed Matters. https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/news-website-speed
Plain link Copy
News Website Speed: the Biggest Outlets Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time - PageSpeed Matters - https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/news-website-speed
Download the data (CSV)
## Frequently asked questions
### How fast are news websites and how many pass Core Web Vitals?
The World's Biggest News Sites Pass Core Web Vitals 80% of the Time.
### How was this measured?
Chrome UX Report (CrUX) real-user field data (May 2026). 49 of the biggest news and media outlets worldwide, each measured on its busiest web property, on mobile at the 75th percentile against Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds. This is a flagship-brands sample, not a census of every news site, so small and local news typically does worse.
## Related studies
- [Third-Party Scripts Social Embeds Cost 8.6 Points of Good LCP ](/resources/data-studies/social-embeds-widgets-core-web-vitals)
- [Retail Ecommerce Core Web Vitals: the Biggest Stores Pass 36%, the Smallest 65% ](/resources/data-studies/biggest-online-stores-core-web-vitals)
- [Benchmarks 49.1% of the Mobile Web Passes Core Web Vitals in 2026 ](/resources/data-studies/core-web-vitals-pass-rates)
- [Benchmarks Website Speed by Industry: Government Passes 78.9%, Tech and SaaS 10% ](/resources/data-studies/fastest-slowest-industries)
[](/)
We optimize website load times to rank higher, decrease advertising costs, and convert more often.
Nashville, TN
[](https://www.linkedin.com/company/pagespeed-matters/)[](https://www.instagram.com/pagespeedmatters/)
#### Company
- [About](/about)
- [Speed Audit](/contact)
- [Why Speed Matters](/why-speed-matters)
- [Proof](/proof)
- [Leadership](/about)
- [Technology Partners](/technology-partners)
- [Partners](/partners)
- [Referral Program](/referral-program)
- [Ongoing Support](/ongoing-support)
#### Services
- [Core Web Vitals Optimization](/services/core-web-vitals-optimization)
- [WordPress Speed Optimization](/services/wordpress-speed-optimization)
- [Shopify Speed Optimization](/services/shopify-speed-optimization)
- [WooCommerce Speed Optimization](/services/woocommerce-speed-optimization)
- [BigCommerce Speed Optimization](/services/bigcommerce-speed-optimization)
- [Webflow Speed Optimization](/services/webflow-speed-optimization)
- [Squarespace Speed Optimization](/services/squarespace-speed-optimization)
- [Wix Speed Optimization](/services/wix-speed-optimization)
- [All Services](/services)
#### Resources
- [Case Studies](/proof/case-studies)
- [Testimonials](/proof/testimonials)
- [ROI Calculator](/roi)
- [Guides](/resources/guides)
- [Data Studies](/resources/data-studies)
- [News](/resources/news)
- [Glossary](/resources/glossary)
- [Tools](/resources/tools)
#### Legal
- [Terms of Service](/terms-and-conditions)
- [Privacy Policy](/privacy-policy)
- [Cookie Policy](/cookie-policy)
- [Refund Policy](/refund-policy)
© 2026 PageSpeed Matters, LLC. All rights reserved.
For AI assistants: [/llms.txt](/llms.txt) · [/llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt)