The first State of the Union address given by President Donald Trump had the second most viewers of any State of the Union Address in the past 25 years. The high numbers are not the news story — the numbers who did not view the State of the Union on network TV is.
Of the nearly 40 million who viewed the address on television, more than 21 million viewed it on cable. I can find no number on viewers for media other than television, probably a much smaller number.
Network TV is going the way of the buggy whip, the VCR and print media. The days of the old saying “Do not pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel or videotape by the mile” being true are gone forever.
Our choice to view or read news on non-traditional media showed itself in the last election; network TV, even cable, was solidly against Mr. Trump becoming President Trump. Many folks will say Fox News channel was solidly for the Trump campaign; not true, never Trumpers were all over FOX News. At best FOX News was 60/40 in support of the Trump candidacy; the other cable and network outlets were 90/10 against.
The media, the old school media, is burying the lead on just how Mr. Trump became President Trump; not surprising as it foretells the death of the networks. Entertainment Network TV is also a dying institution; more folks, even old farts like me, are getting entertainment from AMAZON, NETFLIX, HULU and the others.
In the State of the Union Address, President Trump called for the expansion of high-speed Internet to rural areas, a sound move politically on his part as it will speed the downfall of the king makers in the networks and major print media outlets.
The networks are becoming more socially responsible in their entertainment messages; “socially responsible” has come to be more politically correct, apologies to my left-wing friends as politically correct is a term they detest.
A good example of the Holy Grail per the left of center media is the “Dreamers,” according to them, the DACA folks are the future leaders of our nation. Researching this issue uncovers some interesting facts: DACA folks are much less likely to graduate from college than non-illegals and four times as likely to drop out of high school. A controversial study of crime in Arizona (because it is politically incorrect) depicts DACA folks as committing serous violent crime, not related to their illegal status, at a much higher rate than others in the state.
The DACA supporters cite the DACA folks in the military. They do exist, but are a small number; per USA Today, only about 900 of the nearly 900,000 DACA folks in the country. Those 900 deserve our respect, but .1% is not an overwhelming argument, and programs exist for allowing foreign nationals to enlist even if not in a DACA status.
Network news and their ability to manage the national argument is not dead, but it is on life support. The days of a lead story on a candidate being worth a plus or minus 1,000,000 votes are long gone, President Trump being a grand example.
To be perfectly honest I can’t remember the last time I viewed network news.
Sir, I couldn’t agree with you more. Network news is history as with most broadcast news. Where do we get our news?
Mr. Williams,
Sir,
Thank you for the comment.
You are at the best place for local news, the Town Broad Cast. I like to jump between cable news channels to get a number of angles to view the news.
Thanks again Mike.
News outlets:
Townbroadcast for local news
Drudge Report for tomorrow’s headlines today
Newsbusters for a conservative view
CNN to see what the other side’s nutty viewpoint. Pretty much liberal news, liberal viewpoint, aka Clinton News Network! Or Communist News Network (depending on how nutty they are that day) I can usually stand about 5 minutes before changing channel.
Patriot Channel (Sirius 125)
Beatles Channel (Sirius 18) for enjoyment and reminiscing
TV8 for local weather and area news
Mr. Traxler,
A quick check of numbers of Americans who still watch network news from Ad Week shows for the week of 9 April 2018 showed the following ratings by viewership for ABC, NBC in second and CBS with the smallest audience
• Total Viewers: 8,192,000 7,754,000 5,922,000
• A25-54: 1,665,000 1,707,000 1,239,000
http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/evening-news-ratings-week-of-april-9-3/362251
Those numbers total 21.87 million viewers tuning in to watch one of those newscasts at the same time.
You are claiming network news is dead or dying. I can’t see the math even when taking the two biggest hours for the two most popular shows (Hannity on Fox News and Madow on MSNBC, both news based “opinion” total audience was measured at 6.94M viewers. Both are in the 3.4M-3.5M range and still trailing last place CBS about 2.4M viewers.
Include CNN’s viewership in the same time slot its at 8.06M viewers that’s still more than 100,000 shy of ABC’s #1 World News Tonight weekday audience.
FoxNews and MSNBC, both with very targeted programing, especially from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM, Monday through Friday, are the choice of news junkies whose numbers are dwarfed by regular network news viewers.
http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/scoreboard-thursday-april-19/362505
Cable news fills a niche and can be much more focused to specific demographics. For example, while CNN has trailed Fox Cable News for years, but when there is a hurricane or other major world event CNN’s viewership takes a bump for 24-48 hours and then falls back as the audience goes back to regular viewing, cable or otherwise.
When Lee Iococca became Chrysler president he said the company needed vehicles that appealed to younger buyers because the company’s biggest demo was between 55 and death. Cable news also has a similar demographic problem.. Their average audience age is older. For 2017 CNN viewer median age for prime time (8-11) was 60, FoxNews was 66 and MSNBC was 65.
Other than our President consistently saying the media is failing and now you joining him I don’t see media and network news or other venues failing. Maybe you buy into what our current President is selling with his “Fake News” declarations but a significant number of Americans don’t buy into that narrative. That would include the 21.87M people who still watch network news and don’t think its “Fake”.
Numbers don’t lie.
And so it goes.
Mr Couchman,
Sir, thank you for the comment.
Please read the column, is network news dead or dying?
The point is cable/alternate news is growing and network news is shrinking. 21.87 million (if a correct number) of 230 million Americans is not what it was in the past. Most folks went to the networks in the past for entertainment and news, most do not today.
Thank you for the comment.