An official release informs that millions of people around the globe logged onto CNN international news network’s web sites to get the latest updates on the Iraq war since the outbreak of hostilities on 20 March. Some of the highest page impressions ever achieved on CNN web sites have been recorded since then.

On Thursday, the first full day of the conflict, CNN.com registered 236 million page impressions, the second highest level of traffic ever for CNN (12 September, 2001 was the highest day with 337 million page impressions). Traffic remained high on 21 March registering as the fourth highest day, with 183 million page impressions on CNN.com worldwide.

There has also been specific growth of CNN’s international sites, with the highest ever traffic on CNNArabic.com, CNN’s Arabic language site, which increased by over 60 per cent on a daily basis in the first days of the conflict. The international edition increased traffic by over 60 per cent on Wednesday and by a further 100 per cent on 21 March, the highest level of daily traffic seen on either edition since the launch.

The trend continued over the weekend when CNN.com’s traffic on 22 March was 71 million page impressions, representing twice as much traffic as a normal weekend day. CNN.com’s average weekend traffic numbers for the last six weeks was 34 million.

CNN.com’s news web sites include international and US editions of CNN.com as well as six local language sites in Arabic, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. The web sites also support mobile services, including a PDA service on Avant Go and a breaking news SMS news alert service.

On air it will be interesting to note whether the shift in watching CNN, BBC and their ilk will affect drastically viewership for non news channels. Watch this space for further details.