ABC would have been better off running an episode of Celebrity Family Feud, as their Trump interview bombed and drew 2 million fewer viewers.
Trump doesn’t draw ratings for ABC
The hourlong special with ABC chief anchor George Stephanopoulos came in third in its timeslot Sunday night, notching 3.91 million viewers according to ratings aggregator TV by the Numbers.
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But despite portions of the interview — which had been teased out over the course of several days — making major news, the full special was not enough to draw viewers away from the finale of the U.S. Open on Fox, which pulled in 7.29 million viewers over three hours, or CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which netted 4.67 million viewers in its second hour.
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The interview’s ratings were a sharp drop from Celebrity Family Feud, which premiered in the time slot last week, and pulled in 6.1 million viewers. Trump’s interview also did not build much on the audience of its lead-in, a rerun of America’s Funniest Home Videos that brought in 3.5 million viewers.
ABC invested major resources into the interview, as star anchor George Stephanopoulos spent 30 hours with Trump, and the network relentlessly promoted it across all programs and platforms. The end result was an event that couldn’t beat out an episode of Celebrity Family Feud. Outside of Fox News, Trump isn’t a ratings draw. Nearly a week’s worth of news came out of the Trump interview, but making news is not the same as programming that people want to watch.
Outside of the Fox News crowd, no one wants to watch Trump.
The bigger message is that Trump’s base is tiny compared to the rest of the country. The nation appears to be tuning Trump out, and they have little to no interest in hearing what he has to say.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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