Not only did more Americans than ever tune out President Obama’s fourth State of the Union Address this month, but the press hype took a holiday too, making his speech the least mentioned SOTU in the media yet.
What’s more, Obama didn’t even beat former President W. Bush’s worst effort, according to a new study by HighBeam Research, which looked at the media mentions of State of the Union addresses by Bush and Obama in the days leading up to, day of, and two days after the speech.
We already knew that viewership for the Obama’s annual address was down. Nielsen put viewership of his last State of the Union at 37 million, down from 42 million in 2011, 48 million in 2010 and 52 million in 2009, when Obamamania was at its peak.
But now HighBeam finds that he garnered only 504 major media mentions before, during and after his address. Compare that to 1,192 media mentions that Bush won in his fourth year.
In fact, says the organization, Obama beat Bush, president for eight years, in only one year, his second, edging Bush by 140 mentions.
The group looks at tons of media, sifting through 6,500 publications to determine its media rating. It looks for the total number of times the name of the president plus the words “State of the Union Address” were mentioned in the three days leading up to the speech, the day of, and two days after in the media. They study but don’t rate the address a president gives in his first year because it isn’t technically a State of the Union Address.
For Obama, his 2010 address won 864 media mentions; 2011 had 1,110 mentions; and this year 504 media mentions.
Bush’s second speech in 2002 had 724 mentions; 2003, 1,653 mentions; 2004, 1,192; 2005, 983; 2006, 1,419; 2007, 1,683; and 2008, 606 mentions.
Reach Paul Bedard at @whispersbedard, [email protected].
