The unholy alliance which you witnessed last night on CNN between Donald Trump and his carefully chosen crowd of MAGA sycophants was not witnessed by anywhere near the numbers of people that CNN’s Chris Licht was hoping for. Or, so we can presume. It makes an abundance of sense that Licht was hoping for two things: 1. Draw a crowd the day after the E. Jean Carroll verdict; 2. Draw some of Tucker Carlson’s audience.
Presumably Licht was hoping for the old days, the halcyon ratings from 2016, when CNN and Trump were a money making marriage made in media nirvana.
That’s no longer the case.
In the key 25- to 54-year-old demo, the town hall averaged 703,000, about five times higher than CNN's typical performance at 8pm.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 11, 2023
PoliticusUSA says, “CNN was expecting a ratings bonanza after the E. Jean Carroll verdict, but instead, Trump drew fewer viewers than the last CNN town hall that he did in March 2016 (3.2 million), and it was nearly eight times fewer viewers than the 2015 Republican primary debate that CNN hosted (23 million).”
From where I sit it doesn’t matter that this sh!t-show wasn’t the ratings bonanza CNN expected, much less (wet) dreamed of. The audience wasn’t the general population, it was MAGA world and on that score CNN’s shameful act of granting Trump that much time in prime time with all the trappings of a President or at least major Party nominee getting star treatment gave TRUMP what he wanted. Why do I say that? Because as I already noted the real audience was his MAGAs and even a few million tuning in means pressure on every elected or appointed Republican & others in the GOP power network to keep supporting Trump.
Frankly, Trump used CNN like some contractor he hired to do work on one of his properties. Get them to provide whatever goods or services and get them to front expenses out of their own pockets, then stiff them when payment was due. It seems as though CNN made an investment that was more like a sucker bet, and that when it all shakes out they will lose out financially on the whole deal. Trump surely promised them it would be ratings gold and help them gain gobs of ad revenue and they bought his schtick enough to arrange an event exactly how he wanted it right down to only allowing his enthusiastic supporters in the audience.
I feel badly for the people at CNN who objected all along to this stunt. Some of them will lose their jobs in the months ahead due to the financial fallout. NOT the bigwigs of course! But hard working people who if it had been up to them said no freaking way to last night’s “Town Hall” will. And who knows? The blowback might be bad enough that CNN goes down the fake gold toilet in Trump’s Mar A Lago bathroom.
“It seems as though CNN made an investment that was more like a sucker bet, and that when it all shakes out they will lose out financially on the whole deal.”
Some people are slow learners. Everything Trump touches turns to sh!t. And this is going to play out more and more rapidly from here on.
How come Ted Bundy didn’t get prime time to discuss relationship issues and how to resolve them? Evil shitt!
If Licht was expecting an upward bump in ratings/viewers after the Carroll verdict, he must be extraordinarily stupid. In fact, just by giving a sexual predator like the shit gibbon this airtime, I expect CNN has lost a significant portion of its female viewership.
Dumb, dumb, dumb Licht. Real dumbass move unless of course you’re trying to send CNN into the trash heap of history-then of course this was a fucking brilliant move. lmao What a fucking moron.
And did CNN draw straws for who got to interview tRump? Kaitlin Collins did a good job with an impossible character. How does tRump get away with saying she was “nasty?” What a pig. He hits below the belt right out of the chute!
I was disgusted with the audience laughing at tRump’s feeble attempt at downplaying the rape trial. beause that’s what it was. How sick a man gets pronounced guilty in court of sexually abusing a courageous woman (then and now) and then comes on TV and tries to pretend he never knew her. Pig, pig, pig!!!
Meg, unfortunately, as John Lennon sang in his song, Woman Is The Nigg*r of the World, the woman and minority haters have been in power for centuries here and elsewhere. They have established a culture that is toxic and destructive. Fact. Most people are too lazy to think for themselves.
Okay, I’m totally confused by that Twitter screenshot. In the first part, Stetler says the town hall “averaged 3.1 million total viewers” but then the “response” says “In the key 25-54 demographic, the town hall averaged 703,000.”
It’s been a loooong time since I was in school but the math just don’t add up. Is the first number for the entire “show” and the second is just for part of the time? I mean, “25-54” is a huge spread (based on national figures, that group represents roughly 39% of the total population–excluding people under 15, the group represents just over 43% of the total) and yet, “703,000” is less than 23% of the total viewership. So where did the rest of that roughly 2.4 million people (roughly 77% of the total viewership) come from?
I too would like to see the actual raw data. You’re probably familiar with the old saying “There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics” and depending on what data one chooses to cite and how they frame it there’s a WHOLE lot of room to spin things.
People 54 and up? That would seem to make sense given the probable age group of who worships the moron, no?