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| Donald Trump and fellow Republican debaters draw in 24 million viewers | Donald Trump and fellow Republican debaters draw in 24 million viewers |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Say what you will about Donald Trump’s late-career reinvention from golf baron and reality TV celebrity to politician – it appears to have been good for ratings. | Say what you will about Donald Trump’s late-career reinvention from golf baron and reality TV celebrity to politician – it appears to have been good for ratings. |
| Last night on Fox News’s big-league Republican debate, with Trump as the literal centerpiece, the network attracted 24 million viewers, according to Neilsen data given to Reuters by Fox, with a 7.9 share of Fox’s target demographic – meaning 7.9% of all viewers between 25 and 54 who watched TV last night had their eyes on the live debate. | Last night on Fox News’s big-league Republican debate, with Trump as the literal centerpiece, the network attracted 24 million viewers, according to Neilsen data given to Reuters by Fox, with a 7.9 share of Fox’s target demographic – meaning 7.9% of all viewers between 25 and 54 who watched TV last night had their eyes on the live debate. |
| That result, as Trump might put it, is yooge: the 2011 debate around this time last cycle (August 11) got 5.1m total viewers; the highest-rated debate of the season came in December and grabbed the attention of 7.6m people. Thursday’s throwdown got ratings you’d expect from a major NCAA football game and made it the highest-rated telecast in the history of the network. For comparison, the final Daily Show attracted 3.5m viewers, was the show’s second-highest-rated episode ever, and is still a totally respectable number for basic cable. | That result, as Trump might put it, is yooge: the 2011 debate around this time last cycle (August 11) got 5.1m total viewers; the highest-rated debate of the season came in December and grabbed the attention of 7.6m people. Thursday’s throwdown got ratings you’d expect from a major NCAA football game and made it the highest-rated telecast in the history of the network. For comparison, the final Daily Show attracted 3.5m viewers, was the show’s second-highest-rated episode ever, and is still a totally respectable number for basic cable. |
| But the debate numbers also mark a return to form for the Donald. When the famed mattress mogul first arrived on TV, times were good for broadcasters like NBC, and his show The Apprentice was a huge draw: 28 million viewers tuned in for the season one finale, with a 13.6 rating. | But the debate numbers also mark a return to form for the Donald. When the famed mattress mogul first arrived on TV, times were good for broadcasters like NBC, and his show The Apprentice was a huge draw: 28 million viewers tuned in for the season one finale, with a 13.6 rating. |
| .@FoxNews you should be ashamed of yourself. I got you the highest debate ratings in your history & you say nothing but bad... | |
| And it does seem to indicate that Trump’s shift of gears has given him more star power on Fox News than he had at the end of his career on broadcast. When The Apprentice (in its spinoff-generating Celebrity Apprentice mode) went off the air for the final time in February, it was with 6.1 million viewers and a 5 rating (and to be clear, that comparatively low number is now more or less a sendoff with fireworks for network television, which has lost viewers by the truckload to cable, streaming, and possibly getting up from the couch). | And it does seem to indicate that Trump’s shift of gears has given him more star power on Fox News than he had at the end of his career on broadcast. When The Apprentice (in its spinoff-generating Celebrity Apprentice mode) went off the air for the final time in February, it was with 6.1 million viewers and a 5 rating (and to be clear, that comparatively low number is now more or less a sendoff with fireworks for network television, which has lost viewers by the truckload to cable, streaming, and possibly getting up from the couch). |
| Erin Browne, who has worked as a producer on reality TV shows across genres on both broadcast and cable, said that the lineup last night reminded her “less of a Survivor-type show (like The Apprentice) and more of a Real World/Road Rules Challenge Reunion show”. The debate, she said, depended not on surprise, but on the audience’s familiarity with the collection of faces. “It’s not new people we’re getting to know, but more like rehashing a bunch of old drama from a bunch of outlandish characters.” | Erin Browne, who has worked as a producer on reality TV shows across genres on both broadcast and cable, said that the lineup last night reminded her “less of a Survivor-type show (like The Apprentice) and more of a Real World/Road Rules Challenge Reunion show”. The debate, she said, depended not on surprise, but on the audience’s familiarity with the collection of faces. “It’s not new people we’re getting to know, but more like rehashing a bunch of old drama from a bunch of outlandish characters.” |
| This isn’t Fox’s fault, exactly, but it is the way a debate between not two or three but ten different candidates had to play out. “Good planning on the producers’ part helps to create individual moments so that each person gets the right amount of time.” | This isn’t Fox’s fault, exactly, but it is the way a debate between not two or three but ten different candidates had to play out. “Good planning on the producers’ part helps to create individual moments so that each person gets the right amount of time.” |
| But does that make Trump a viable candidate, given how much he seems to have turned the political process into a circus? “Ross Perot had a shot at becoming president – he was a plainspeaking, blunt-talking, outrageous character who’d been successful in business,” said former CNN president Jon Klein, now of Tapp TV, echoing a comparison that was plainly worrying to everyone else on the stage last night. (Trump was the only candidate who wouldn’t commit to supporting the eventual nominee, and Perot’s 18.9% of the popular vote in the 1992 election is widely considered by Republicans to have guaranteed Bill Clinton the White House.) | But does that make Trump a viable candidate, given how much he seems to have turned the political process into a circus? “Ross Perot had a shot at becoming president – he was a plainspeaking, blunt-talking, outrageous character who’d been successful in business,” said former CNN president Jon Klein, now of Tapp TV, echoing a comparison that was plainly worrying to everyone else on the stage last night. (Trump was the only candidate who wouldn’t commit to supporting the eventual nominee, and Perot’s 18.9% of the popular vote in the 1992 election is widely considered by Republicans to have guaranteed Bill Clinton the White House.) |
| That’s not the same as actually landing in the White House, but Klein cautioned that anything is possible. “As a producer, you’ve got to go in with the presumption that one of these people might be president of the United States. There are different schools of thought about producing debates. Bake in the fireworks – look for the punches to fly. I don’t buy into that, but I’ve worked with a lot of producers who do. They’re intelligent people who are interested in the issues, but they think debates are supposed to be like the Ronda Rousey fight.” | That’s not the same as actually landing in the White House, but Klein cautioned that anything is possible. “As a producer, you’ve got to go in with the presumption that one of these people might be president of the United States. There are different schools of thought about producing debates. Bake in the fireworks – look for the punches to fly. I don’t buy into that, but I’ve worked with a lot of producers who do. They’re intelligent people who are interested in the issues, but they think debates are supposed to be like the Ronda Rousey fight.” |
| As the debates go forward, there are further questions, and since Fox is the venue of choice for the Republican candidates, their responsibility to the viewing public is enormous, especially with an unprecedented 17 people competing for the nomination. “The biggest challenge for Fox,” said Klein, “which I’m sure they’re taking seriously, is: how do you give people enough time to explain what they would actually do?” | As the debates go forward, there are further questions, and since Fox is the venue of choice for the Republican candidates, their responsibility to the viewing public is enormous, especially with an unprecedented 17 people competing for the nomination. “The biggest challenge for Fox,” said Klein, “which I’m sure they’re taking seriously, is: how do you give people enough time to explain what they would actually do?” |