Donald Trump’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination consumed more network news airtime than any other candidate, 579 minutes, compared to just 64 minutes for his top rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, according to a minute-by-minute analysis of network news in 2015.
The report from the Media Research Center put Hillary Clinton second, at 486 minutes, and one-time GOP front-runner Jeb Bush at 150 minutes of airtime. And speculation of a Joe Biden run came in next, at 111 minutes.
Produced by Mike Ciandella & Rich Noyes, the report is a remarkable look at what networks covered and how much time they devoted to what they considered big stories.
Overall, the networks did 13,022 news items totalling 18,549 minutes, or over 300 hours, of news. The math should have shown far more minutes, but MRC determined that commercials and promotions ate up over a third of the 30 minute broadcasts, and the average length was just 18 minutes and 20 seconds.
They found a big bias in favor of crime and terrorism, and 2015 was a good year for both. Terrorism was given over 39 hours of airtime, crime nearly 18 hours.
But the report found that liberal or Democratic scandals got little coverage. Concerns about the Clinton Foundation funding and the Benghazi, Libya attack investigation got under an hour of airtime. And the probe into the IRS targeting scandal received no airtime.
What’s more, Planned Parenthood abortion scandal videos received just 25 minutes of network airtime, about the same as devoted to Bruce Jenner’s sex transition.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
