American media audiences decline after Trump's departure

World

Published: 2021-03-25 11:35

Last Updated: 2024-04-23 06:39


Source: NPR
Source: NPR

The American media has witnessed a decline in its TV audiences and website readers after the departure of President Donald Trump, with his successor, President Joe Biden being considered 'boring.'

CNN embodies this sudden decline in viewership as its audience more than halved between December and the first half of March at "peak times" (20:30 to 22:00), according to Nielsen data.

Its competitors, MSNBC and Fox News, are in better shape, but they have also recorded a drop in numbers.

On the press level, the New York Times lost about 20 million visitors to its website between January and February in the United States, and the Washington Post nearly 30 million, according to comScore office data.

"There is still a major catastrophe going on that should keep people in front of their screens," said Adam Kiara, a professor of media at Hartford University in Connecticut. He explained that the audience's retreat showed that "people were more interested in the news of President Trump than they were about what is happening today."

The former president, who is currently residing in Florida, has appeared several times since he left office. After he was removed from his official position and his Twitter account, he no longer had the platform that had made him the permanent focus of media attention.

"It benefited the networks and attracted clicks, subscriptions and viewers," Kiara says, adding, "We were expecting it to drop one day."