“The fact you have such a high proportion of viewers of the Democratic convention on MSNBC does suggest, to some extent, a gravitation on the Democratic side toward a more partisan, viewpoint-reinforcing network,” Mr. “What we saw in the last presidential election was that Clinton supporters distributed their attention much more evenly among a broader range of outlets, and Trump supporters concentrated much more heavily on Fox News,” said Yochai Benkler, a co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Fox News’s viewership fell far below its usual prime-time average. MSNBC clocked its highest-rated prime-time week in the network’s 24-year history, with a 10 p.m. The channel’s ratings for the Republican convention were among its lowest prime-time weeks of the year.įor the Democratic convention, the picture was sharply reversed. On MSNBC, three Trump critics - Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace - lambasted the president’s address and interrupted the convention for several fact-checking segments. Trump’s speech “surprisingly flat” and “far too long.” Brit Hume, an analyst, said the president “seemed to miss the excitement that he generates in himself when he’s ad-libbing.” Even the pro-Trump host Laura Ingraham, after calling the president’s speech “incredible” and “electric,” conceded to viewers, “Some are saying it was a little too long.” Trump, Fox News viewers heard some critical commentary about the president on Thursday. Though the channel’s most popular hosts support Mr. That was more viewers than watched ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC combined. Trump’s climactic speech, was nearly 9.2 million, close to a prime-time record for the network.
Still, Americans’ TV habits over the past two weeks offer a glimpse of a cross-section of likely voters.įox News’s dominance during the Republican convention was striking. Some political analysts argue that Nielsen ratings are an irrelevant indicator, given the role of social media and other online platforms in the country’s media ecosystem.
6 Texts : Three prominent Fox News hosts - Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade - texted Mark Meadows during the Jan. Fauci Comments : The Fox News host Jesse Watters used notably violent language in urging a gathering of conservatives to publicly confront Dr.The total television audience for both conventions fell roughly 25 percent from 2016, a sign of Americans’ increasing reliance on online outlets and streaming services to follow live events. We have the opportunity to create virtual reality worlds that affirm our points of view.”Ī nightly average of 21.6 million people watched the Democratic convention on live TV, compared with 19.4 million for the Republicans.
“We’re a polarized country, and that is reflected in the media choices we make. “It speaks to the larger point that we are siloed in our media choices,” David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist and CNN political analyst, said in an interview.
And it underscores fears about a polarized information environment where Americans can receive little exposure to political ideas that run counter to their own. Television viewers’ turn to perceived safe spaces raises questions about the ability of political conventions - which reached a broader TV audience in the pre-internet era - to persuade undecided voters.