Media Matters Report on Conservative Media Dominance Reveals What Progressive Donors Don't Want to Hear
Conservative dominance of digital platforms is driven by billionaire backing that the left hasn't matched
A new Media Matters report confirms what many of us have suspected for years: the right absolutely dominates online media. And it's not even close.
According to their analysis, nine of the top ten online shows are right-leaning, with a total following of more than 197 million subscribers and viewers across platforms. The only left-leaning show to crack the top ten? Trevor Noah's "What Now?" with 21.1 million followers.
Overall, right-leaning online shows have amassed nearly 481 million followers across platforms — almost five times more than the 104 million followers for left-leaning shows. On YouTube alone, right-wing channels have racked up 65 billion views compared to 31.5 billion for left-leaning content.
These numbers are staggering, but they're not an accident. They're the result of a deliberate, well-funded strategy to colonize the digital media landscape with conservative voices. While left-leaning creators struggle to cobble together sustainable business models through Patreon donations and merchandise sales, right-wing personalities are frequently backed by billionaire money that allows them to build sophisticated media operations with professional production values and massive marketing budgets.
This isn't just about politics — it's about money, power, and the future of our information ecosystem.
The Kochs, the Mercers, the Thiels, the Murdochs, the Uihleins — these aren't just wealthy families; they're kingmakers who understand that investing in media is investing in political power.
Take The Daily Wire, co-founded by Ben Shapiro (whose online platforms boast a combined following of 25 million according to the Media Matters study). What began as a modest conservative website has expanded into a multimedia empire producing movies, children's content, and multiple top-performing podcasts. This growth didn't happen organically — it was bankrolled by Texas fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks, who reportedly invested $4.7 million to get the company off the ground.
Then there's Rumble, the "free speech" alternative to YouTube that's become a haven for right-wing content creators. Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist and prominent Trump supporter, is among its key investors. And now, right-wing online shows have used the platform to add billions more views to their already enormous reach, according to Media Matters.
Billionaire Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter (now X) has also reshaped the digital landscape in favor of right-wing voices. Not only has Musk personally amplified far-right content to his nearly 220 million followers, but he's also implemented changes to the platform's algorithm and moderation policies that have benefited right-wing accounts. And let's not forget his direct payments to right-wing influencers through X's creator program.
These are just a few examples of how the conservative donor class has systematically built and funded an alternative media ecosystem that now dwarfs progressive online media.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this takeover is how right-wing content has seeped into supposedly non-political spaces. The Media Matters analysis found that 72% of online shows with an ideological bent that self-identify as non-political are actually right-leaning.
Comedy podcasts like Joe Rogan's (39.9 million total followers), Theo Von's (22.3 million), and the Nelk Boys' "Full Send Podcast" (16.7 million) don't explicitly brand themselves as political content. Yet they regularly platform right-wing figures and advance conservative narratives under the guise of just having conversations or being politically incorrect.
As Media Matters notes, these 15 right-leaning comedy shows alone account for 117.5 million followers — 20% of the total following across all 320 ideological shows they analyzed. And in the lead-up to the 2024 election, Trump and Vance appeared on six of these comedy shows a total of nine times, generating nearly 120 million views on YouTube.
This infiltration of supposedly non-political spaces works precisely because it doesn't present itself as political propaganda. It's just bros talking about life, making jokes, and occasionally hosting a presidential candidate or anti-trans activist. And behind many of these seemingly independent creators? You guessed it — conservative money.
In contrast, progressive online media operates in a funding desert. While right-wing creators enjoy the backing of ideologically motivated billionaires, left-leaning voices must navigate a fragmented landscape of smaller donors, subscriptions, and advertising — all while competing against the right's well-oiled promotion machine.
Major progressive donors simply haven't prioritized building a comparable media ecosystem. George Soros, the right's favorite boogeyman, has primarily focused his giving on policy organizations and civil society groups, not media entities that could counter the Shapiros and Rogans of the world. Similarly, other wealthy liberal donors have directed their resources toward traditional political campaigns, issue advocacy, and established nonprofit journalism rather than investing in the creator economy.
Even when progressive funders do support media, they often impose restrictions and expectations that make it difficult to build large, sustainable audiences. While conservative backers give their content creators freedom to be entertaining, provocative, and commercially viable first, progressive funding often comes with strings attached around messaging, issue focus, and measurable policy impacts.
The approach means left-leaning creators are forced to prioritize substance over style, nuance over engagement, and education over entertainment — all while operating with a fraction of the resources available to their right-wing counterparts.
This massive imbalance matters for our democracy. As Americans increasingly get their news and form their political opinions online, the overwhelming right-wing dominance of these spaces shapes everything from policy debates to election outcomes.
The 2024 "podcast election" provided a stark example. According to Edison Podcast Metrics cited in the Media Matters report, Trump's appearances on podcasts and online shows reached 23.5 million American adults in an average week — nearly four times Harris's reach of 6.4 million. At Trump's election night victory party, UFC President Dana White specifically thanked online hosts Adin Ross, Theo Von, and Joe Rogan for helping elect Trump.
And they deserve the credit. These platforms have become powerful engines for mainstreaming right-wing narratives, laundering extremist talking points, and creating parasocial relationships between hosts and millions of predominantly young male viewers — relationships that translate into political influence.
More broadly, this asymmetry distorts our collective understanding of reality. When one political perspective dominates the information ecosystem by a five-to-one margin, it inevitably shapes how we perceive issues, who we consider authorities, and what policy options seem viable.
If progressives want to compete in the digital information space, they need to get serious about building and funding an ecosystem that can rival the right's dominance.
This doesn't mean mimicking the dishonesty and extremism that characterizes much of right-wing media. But it does require acknowledging some uncomfortable truths: entertainment values matter, production quality matters, marketing matters, and yes, money matters.
Progressive donors need to take a page from the conservative playbook by making long-term, substantial investments in digital media with fewer strings attached. They need to fund not just serious policy content but also entertainment, comedy, sports, and lifestyle content that can reach beyond the already converted.
More importantly, they need to recognize that building media power is not secondary to political organizing — it's an essential prerequisite. In an era when a single podcast host can reach more people than all the major cable news networks combined, media isn't just about informing people about progressive policies; it's about creating the cultural and informational environment where those policies can even be considered.
The right understood this decades ago when they began building their media apparatus. They knew that owning the megaphones was just as important as having something to say into them. It's long past time for progressives to learn the same lesson.
The alternative is accepting a future where the digital public square is permanently tilted toward conservative voices — not because their ideas are more popular, but because they were willing to pay for the microphones.
The left is so far behind on this that it can seen impossible to catch up, but we have to try.
It shocked me, when conducting research for another piece, that the MSNBC audience might lean left but is just as old as the Fox News audience. Key demos that were once reliably Democratic don’t watch Rachel Maddow and certainly not Morning Joe.
I don't mean to dismiss these concerns, I'm just grasping for whatever thin reed of hope I can cling to, but why doesn't five times as many followers on YouTube translate into winning more elections? It says something about the repugnance of their ideas and candidates that all this media dominance translates into 49.5% of the vote (and yes, that was enough to put Trump in the White House.) You can turn up the volume on the lies and repeat them ad nauseum, but maybe lots of people correctly perceive that they are lies?