Cringeworthy virtual Democratic convention is a ratings bomb

At press time, posted viewership marks nearly a 28% drop from the high-stakes DNC of 2016. Broadcast channels ABC, CBS, and NBC were down a staggering 42% with just 6.7 million viewers at 10 p.m. Cable networks Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN were down 16% to nearly 12 million viewers. In total, that’s fewer than 19 million views — or 28% the viewership of the 2016 DNC. That’s roughly on par with the higher-rated Democratic primary debates, not one of which came within a stone’s throw of the best-rated 2016 Republican debates.

The 2020 DNC was always destined to be a little lackluster. Biden, who locked up the nomination extremely early, had a much less contentious relationship with socialist firebrand Bernie Sanders. Also, Democrats resigned themselves early on to a virtual convention due to the coronavirus pandemic. But given the ample time to plan and with a broadly liked, uncontroversial nominee in tow, it wasn’t doomed. No, the galling visual display and choppy series of clips threading together Monday night’s affair was a choice — and a telling one at that.

The opening night of the convention was centered on “We the People,” or uniting Republicans and Democrats under the Biden ticket. But the best Democrats could do was finding GOP has-beens and barely-weres such as Meg Whitman and John Kasich.

And the message of Biden’s moderation was complicated by socialist Sanders’s lead-off performance for the night. Couple that with the fact that other than Sanders and Michelle Obama, the night was solely occupied with politicians and random strangers positing a vacuum of stage presence, and it was a recipe for boredom.

But the true travesty of the night was the failure of production. Placing a lone Longoria Baston in a studio to redirect randomly to Zoom calls from people affected by the coronavirus and the Orange Man made most of the night feel like an infomercial. The mix of live and pre-filmed videos brought the worst of both worlds.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, who already has the charisma of a used car salesman, was stuck awkwardly staring next to the camera as she read in a monotone from a misplaced teleprompter. The former first lady had filmed her speech so early that she didn’t even say anything about Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate.

The increasingly cringey musical interludes served as a cherry on top, capping off with Billy Porter and Steven Stills perfoming a public access television-themed rendition of “For What It’s Worth.” It was such an egregious auditory and visual assault on the audience that every single networked raced to cut away from the humiliation.

The worst is yet to come. Tonight, we get to cheer on the predatory Bill Clinton, and tomorrow, we’ll be graced with the charisma of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. Biden is set to speak on Thursday, if he can remember.