Sunday, January 26, 2020

Impeachment trial tanks in TV ratings

Impeachment trial gets lower ratings than Jeopardy! on a bad night- Tiana Low, Washington Examiner:

January 24, 2020 - "Across half a dozen network and cable channels, the second day of the Senate impeachment trial's viewership fell by nearly one-fifth. It drew 8.9 million viewers in total over the course of four prime hours, according to Nielsen. That's a hair more than the number of people who watched Chicago Fire on NBC that night. It's nearly a million fewer than the average number of viewers that Jeopardy! scored from October through December of last year....

"All of this flies in the face of what the media promised. Lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff, the media swore, was 'dazzling,' 'masterful,' 'eloquent,' and 'brilliant,' a made-for-television prosecutor arguing the case of a century. But the rest of the country knows exactly how this trial ends, and Schiff isn't exactly a lightning rod of charisma....

"Trump drew in 32 million viewers at his Republican National Convention acceptance speech. Last year's State of the Union garnered nearly 47 million viewers.... Tens of millions of viewers are willing to tune in to politics multiple times a year. But they don't think impeachment is important enough to watch."

Impeachment Gets Worse Ratings Than Soap Operas - Tristan Justice, The Federalist:

January 25, 2020: "This week’s numbers echo the same ratings that the House impeachment hearings earned last fall, when only an estimated 13.8 million people watched the first public impeachment hearing by the House Intelligence Committee across all 10 networks. These values represent a stark difference from the 20 million people who watched Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony during his confirmation hearing in the fall of 2018.

"The lack of viewership ... illustrates a public understanding of what a show trial the proceedings have become. In other words.... Americans recognize the difference between performative actions full of useless bravado and events where major outcomes may result, such as the Kavanaugh hearings.

"Democrats need at least 20 Republican senators to vote in favor of a guilty verdict, an event which is certain not to happen, given public support for impeachment has remained underwater for more than a month, according to Real Clear Politics’ latest aggregate of polls."
Read more: https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/25/impeachment-gets-worse-ratings-than-soap-operas/

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