GOP front-runner Donald Trump dominated the news cycle again Monday evening, as the major networks spent a full 84 percent of their nightly broadcasts talking about the billionaire businessman and not his Republican competition.
ABC News’ “World News Tonight with David Muir,” CBS News’ “Evening News with Scott Pelley” and NBC News’ “Nightly News” each led their newscasts Monday night with coverage of the 2016 GOP presidential primary, spending a combined total of 18 minutes and 17 seconds on the issue, according to analysis by the Media Research Center.
And though the lion’s share of the coverage went to Trump, it wasn’t for flattering reasons.
There were eight different news segments between the three networks, and much of the time spent covering the race Monday night was dedicated to fears about violence between supporters and protesters at Trump rallies.
The casino tycoon has caught heat recently for encouraging rally-goers to confront protesters at his campaign events, and even promised to pay the legal fees for whoever took a swing at a disruptor.
In contrast, the other GOP candidates, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, have not egged on their supporters, and their campaign rallies have been far less vicious.
But behaving well hasn’t paid off for these lawmakers, as the major networks continue instead to reward Trump with wall-to-wall campaign coverage, according to the MRC and data compiled by TV Eyes.
“The most lopsided breakdown between the four remaining candidates could be found on NBC, where Trump received four minutes and eight seconds while Senator Ted Cruz … fetched a pathetic 10 seconds,” MRC noted.
The difference in NBC’s coverage of Trump and Cruz is notable given that the Texas lawmaker is predicted to make a strong showing Tuesday evening in Missouri and Illinois Republican primaries.
Rubio was similarly ignored by NBC Monday evening, and was given a mere seven seconds of airtime, even though the Florida senator is making what is essentially a final stand in his home state of Florida.
The Sunshine State Republican primary is a winner-take-all situation, and Rubio has a good shot at taking home the state’s 99 delegates.
In contrast to the Republican senators, Kasich scored nearly a full minute of coverage from NBC, as the network dedicated a full 55 seconds to covering the Ohio governor’s chances of winning the Buckeye State GOP primary, according to MRC.
CBS dedicated more overall time to covering the GOP side of Tuesday’s primary races, but the network still focused mostly on Trump, who got six minutes and 36 seconds of the network’s attention.
Kasich got nearly a minute of coverage on CBS, while Rubio got 33 seconds and Cruz got 28.
ABC dedicated five minutes and 11 seconds Monday evening to the race, and four minutes and 42 second of that time went to Trump. Not even the network’s coverage of the Democratic presidential race, which scored a mere two minutes and 27 seconds, could compare.
“While the other three were still far behind, Kasich and Rubio received the most mentions [at ABC] by Muir and correspondents Tom Llamas and Jonathan Karl as one minute and 10 seconds went to Kasich and 45 seconds were handed out to Rubio. Even though he’s won eight states thus far, viewers on ABC saw only 27 seconds of Cruz,” the MRC reported concluded.
