BBC Newsnight engagement report
@BBCNewsnight - 704K followers on X
Measured over 98 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on October 2, 2026.
Engagement
A typical post picks up 95 interactions against 704K followers, an engagement rate of 0.013%. Measured over 98 original posts, its engagement rate beats 38% of 20,444 tracked accounts of a similar size, which puts it in the middle of its size range rather than at either end. Posts are seen about 26K times each, and 0.372% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 3.63% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 3.6 posts a day over the last 30 days, with activity on roughly 60% of days. Most posts go out around 22:00 UTC, and Friday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 98 posts sampled, 100% carry an image or video. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 5.9K interactions, about 62x its own typical post.
Measured over 98 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on October 2, 2026. Recurring tag: #newsnight.
Compared with accounts its own size
BBC Newsnight's engagement rate beats 38% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (20,444 accounts, accounts of similar size (decile 10 of 10)). A percentile is spread evenly by construction, so 50 really is the middle of that group and 90 really is its top tenth.
On engagement per impression rather than per follower it beats 25% of the same group. When those two numbers disagree, the gap is about how far its posts travel rather than how people react to them.
Where this sits in the catalog
At 0.013%, BBC Newsnight sits above the 10th percentile of the 204,956 accounts in this comparison. That places it in the bottom 25% band, which runs below 0.024%.
Show the percentile table
| Percentile | Engagement rate |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | 0.004% |
| 25th percentile | 0.024% |
| 50th percentile | 0.143% |
| 75th percentile | 0.678% |
| 90th percentile | 2.55% |
| 99th percentile | 82.4% |
This ruler is the whole measured catalog, not a size-matched group: it shows where the raw rate falls across every account we can measure, all of which are large. For a like-for-like comparison, read the size-band percentile above instead. See how the bands are built
Posting timing
This account posts most often around 22:00 UTC, and Friday is its busiest day of the week. The bars below are the catalog-wide pattern, with this account's own busiest slot marked. They do not show how this account performs at each hour: we keep one aggregate per account, not one per hour, so that measurement does not exist in our data.
Show engagement by hour posted, utc as a table
| Hour (UTC) | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC | -1% | 89K |
| 01:00 UTC | -2% | 90K |
| 02:00 UTC | -3% | 88K |
| 03:00 UTC | -4% | 94K |
| 04:00 UTC | -5% | 76K |
| 05:00 UTC | -4% | 75K |
| 06:00 UTC | -5% | 86K |
| 07:00 UTC | -5% | 93K |
| 08:00 UTC | -4% | 108K |
| 09:00 UTC | -4% | 124K |
| 10:00 UTC | -3% | 129K |
| 11:00 UTC | -3% | 141K |
| 12:00 UTC | -3% | 154K |
| 13:00 UTC | -3% | 167K |
| 14:00 UTC | -4% | 173K |
| 15:00 UTC | -2% | 176K |
| 16:00 UTC | -3% | 171K |
| 17:00 UTC | -3% | 159K |
| 18:00 UTC | -2% | 149K |
| 19:00 UTC | -2% | 141K |
| 20:00 UTC | -1% | 131K |
| 21:00 UTC | 0% | 116K |
| 22:00 UTC | -2% | 100K |
| 23:00 UTC | -1% | 90K |
Show engagement by day of week as a table
| Day | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | +5% | 393K |
| Monday | +1% | 483K |
| Tuesday | -2% | 520K |
| Wednesday | -3% | 472K |
| Thursday | -2% | 430K |
| Friday | -3% | 447K |
| Saturday | +2% | 393K |
Formats this account uses
Its own posting mix on the left, and what each of those formats does across every account we track on the right. Only formats where the effect clears our publish test appear here, so an empty row is a format we could not measure rather than one that does nothing.
| Format | This account | Catalog effect | 95% interval | Accounts behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image or video | 100% of posts | +111% | +108% to +115% | 34K |
| Outbound link | 0% of posts | -41% | -42% to -40% | 32K |
| Typical length | - | no effect | -2% to -1% | 42K |
- 100% of this account's sampled posts carry an image or video. Across the catalog, posts with an image or video run 111% above the same accounts' other posts.
- 0% of its posts carry a link off X. Across the catalog, posts with an outbound link run 41% below the same accounts' other posts.
- Its average post runs 275 characters, which falls in the 180 - 280 characters band. Across the catalog, posts of 180 to 280 characters match the same accounts' other posts almost exactly.
These are catalog-wide differences applied to this account's own posting mix, not a measurement of how each format performs for this account specifically. We keep one median per account, not one per format per account, so the second thing is not something this data can tell you.
Best tweets
- Sep 25, 202662x their median
"Thank you and I guess all I can do is this..." Rory Stewart gives his first response to his viral Newsnight moment. #Newsnight https://t.co/AqEKM4G24F
- Sep 9, 202652x their median
“I wonder how abusive they’d be if they suddenly got a stitch when out swimming? They’d be screaming for the RNLI to rescue them, and the RNLI would do it” Celebrated sailor and lifelong RLNI supporter Sir Robin Knox Johnson criticises the abuse of RNLI volunteers who helped small boat migrants reach land in Portsmouth. #Newsnight
- Oct 1, 202624x their median
Older people are now reading "a lot of chatbot rubbish" and that's "dangerous." After four decades at Private Eye, Ian Hislop tells #Newsnight it's not just young people falling for disinformation and why it "is always worth correcting." https://t.co/TrggeVW1Q1
- Sep 29, 202618x their median
“There were moments I had tears in my eyes. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck.” The New Statesman's Oli Dugmore says the prime minister's speech today was "one of the best political speeches I have heard in my adult life." #Newsnight https://t.co/mqFRbYDdf8
- Aug 18, 202614x their median
"We had 3000 people dying... because of the heat, we've had Stourbridge on fire, we've had farmers saying that they are deeply concerned about food security" Ex-Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas says the idea of further drilling in the North Sea is "ludicrous". #Newsnight https://t.co/mhArA2Fq95
- Sep 30, 202612x their median
‘I think he will come to regret it.’ Andrew Neil, journalist and broadcaster, says Andy Burnham risks deflecting from the rest of his agenda by ‘endless debilitating debate’ over the UK's relationship with the EU. #Newsnight https://t.co/ApDSnC71Y3
- Oct 1, 202611x their median
“The state - its first duty is to protect its citizens. Prince Harry is one of those citizens” Scott Hamer, a former personal protection officer for King Charles, says a “reckless” photographer being spotted near the school of Harry and Meghan’s children supports the family’s case for state funded protection. #Newsnight
- Sep 10, 202611x their median
“When scientists tell you there is a chance that it could have a cataclysmic impact on humanity, you’ve got to be a moron not to say slow it down” US Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking to @faisalislam, urges caution around the development of AI, adding: “what is the risk of going forward if all of humanity’s existence is at stake?” #Newsnight
- Aug 25, 202611x their median
"I'm really, really sad tonight... she has been part of my life for the last 60 years, pretty much." DJ Bob Harris, who interviewed Dolly Parton many times, reacts to the singer's death and calls her "a force for good". #Newsnight https://t.co/d4L0X3X05b
- Aug 25, 202610x their median
“If everyone tried a little harder, you know, to care about each other a little more and stop just bickering… around the world it would be so much easier.” Dolly Parton has died aged 80. The legendary country singer spoke to #Newsnight back in 2019. https://t.co/iX1N3I1oy7
Ranked by total interactions across everything we have tracked for this account, which is a longer history than the 30-day window the rates above use. The multiple compares each post to this account's own median.
Recurring topics
The most frequent hashtags in the sampled posts. They describe what this account writes about; they are not a performance signal, and the catalog-wide breakdown on the hub shows how little hashtag count moves.
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Reading these numbers
A typical post picks up 95 interactions against 704K followers, an engagement rate of 0.013%. Measured over 98 original posts, its engagement rate beats 38% of 20,444 tracked accounts of a similar size, which puts it in the middle of its size range rather than at either end. Posts are seen about 26K times each, and 0.372% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 3.63% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 3.6 posts a day over the last 30 days, with activity on roughly 60% of days. Most posts go out around 22:00 UTC, and Friday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 98 posts sampled, 100% carry an image or video. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 5.9K interactions, about 62x its own typical post.
- What is BBC Newsnight's engagement rate on X?
- BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) has an engagement rate of 0.013%, based on the median interactions across 98 original posts from the last 30 days against 703,675 followers. Replies, reposts and quote-posts of other people are excluded from that sample.
- Is that a good engagement rate?
- At 0.013%, BBC Newsnight sits above the 10th percentile of the 204,956 accounts in this comparison. Those comparison accounts are all large ones, because our scanning cadence is weighted towards big accounts, so this is a ranking among peers of similar scale rather than a ranking across X.
- Does @BBCNewsnight have real engagement?
- Its engagement rate beats 38% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (20,444 accounts), which puts it in the middle of its size range group. Ranking inside a size band matters because engagement rate falls as accounts grow, so a raw rate would mostly re-measure the follower count. It is a starting point for a look at follower quality, not a verdict on it.
- When does @BBCNewsnight post?
- Most posts go out around 22:00 UTC, and Friday is its busiest day, at roughly 3.57 posts per day across the measured window.