Maybe Republican presidential front-runner is right that TV should pay him for the boosted ratings and story fodder he’s providing, especially to the network news operations.
Just consider these new results from a Media Research Center analysis of the two hottest political topics, President Obama’s Oval Office plan to fight ISIS and Trump’s plan to block foreign Muslims from entering the U.S. temporarily.
Mike Ciandella, a research analyst for MRC’s News Analysis Division, found that network norming and evening news programs devoted 105 minutes to Trump’s proposal and a near non-existant 3 minutes to Obama’s. That’s one hour and 45 minutes.
Trump’s coverage by the numbers from MRC:
— NBC had the most coverage of Trump’s comments at 42 minutes, with ABC and CBS clocking in at 32 and 31 minutes, respectively. On Tuesday night alone, the evening news broadcasts spent 24 minutes on this topic.
— ABC gave Trump analysis 32 minutes.
— CBS turned over 31 minutes to dissecting Trump.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
