Signal AI officially announced its acquisition of Memo, the world’s only company to partner with publishers to access their readership data.
Each year, Memo uses its unique dataset to produce an annual study of the media landscape, showcasing what people read over the past year. In this edition, we’ll share some key findings from the 2026 State of Media & Readership Report, but there’s much more available in the full report here.
The question we’re asking: Which narratives in 2025 were the ones to break through, resonate, and genuinely sustain attention?
The moments that broke through: The #1 most-read story of 2025 had over 41M readers on one article
In a crowded, ever-changing news environment, only a small number of moments meaningfully break through the noise.
In 2025, readership spikes were driven by major political events and culturally dominant moments—such as the LA Fires, Inauguration Day, the Super Bowl, and the Charlie Kirk shooting—far exceeding the daily average readership of 32M. While many days clustered around the baseline, these high-impact moments reset attention and accounted for a disproportionate share of total readership.
Tariffs sustained interest: Readership for Tariffs peaked in Q2, but drove 1.8B readers throughout 2025
In 2025, politics dominated the news cycle, with each quarter shaped by a major political flashpoint that drove peak readership. From the inauguration and tariff rollouts to the Charlie Kirk shooting and a year-end government shutdown, audiences consistently rallied around moments of political action, conflict, and consequence.
Economic uncertainty sustained attention: 154 days in 2025 saw above-average readership
Beyond the spikes, a core set of topics consistently anchored readership throughout the year. Coverage of Tariffs, Climate Change, the Russia & Ukraine War, Inflation/Recession, and Immigration & Border Policy drew sustained attention across multiple quarters, reflecting ongoing public concern rather than momentary interest.
Rather than fading at year’s end, several high-read issues persisted into 2026. Immigration & Border Policy exemplifies this trend, generating 289M readers in January 2026 alone.
Final thoughts: Breakthrough impact
Breakthrough impact comes from timing and relevance, not frequency. The PR & Communications function is more vital than ever—using data-driven strategy to own and shape narratives, and leveraging syndicated authoritative reporting readers can trust.
Now what?
You make critical decisions every day as a business leader. That’s why you need trusted data to help you build a more informed strategy and make more confident business decisions.
Signal AI helps you map your next move by delivering market trend analysis that highlights both hidden business risks and whitespace opportunities, giving you the foresight to shape your long-term plan.
Report Methodology:
For this report, Memo analyzed article readership (i.e., the unique visitors to an article) from hundreds of national, local, business, lifestyle, and trade outlets. Details about the specific data sets are below.
Macro Trends: 366K articles published Jan 1- Dec 31, 2025 about the biggest issues, themes, events, and public figures of the year. Used for biggest moments of the year, issues that anchored readership, breaking through the noise, spotlighting tariffs, generative AI in the news, layoffs, seasonal moments, and CEOs in the news analyses.
General Readership Trends: Hundreds of thousands of articles published in 2024 and 2025 from Memo’s database to analyze readership behavior. Used for AI effect, busiest days of the week, syndication, paywalls, and readership peak analyses.
Brand Coverage: 92K articles published Jan 1 - Aug 18, 2025 across various industries and publications. Used for Coverage vs. Real Readership Impact Analysis.
AI Citations: 180 LLMs conversations tracked across 30 unique prompts via Memo’s new AI Citations product offering.