Newsrooms can criticize President Trump all they like, but they can’t deny that he has been a boon to their industry.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who long ago traded in his role as an up-and-coming GOP heavy hitter to play unofficial Trump spokesman, made the correct observation this week that the commander in chief has been a godsend to the press.
“Donald Trump has been the greatest thing for your industry,” the governor told reporters. “Your industry was dying before Donald Trump became president.”
Though it’s a bit of an overstatement to say the news industry was dying prior to Trump’s entrance into the 2016 GOP primary, Christie is absolutely correct to say the Queens businessman has been great for the news business.
In 2016, for example, three of the New York Times’ 10 most-read stories of 2016 were about Trump. As the paper has produced a great deal of content regarding Trump, it has also enjoyed an explosion in subscriptions and Internet traffic.
The paper announced earlier this year that its digital subscriptions in October, November and December 2016 were greater in number than all of 2013 and 2014 combined. The paper picked up an impressive 41,000 print and digital subscriptions in the week following Election Day alone.
By February of this year, the Times had already doubled 2016’s subscription numbers, and things have only gotten better for them.
“We added an astonishing 308,000 net digital news subscriptions, making Q1 the single best quarter for subscriber growth in our history,” the paper’s CEO, Mark Thompson, said in a CNBC interview.
He added that, “there is no question we have got some rocket fuel in the subscription business in recent quarters.”
Other newsrooms have experienced similar traffic pickups thanks to the so-called Trump Bump.
The Wall Street Journal, for example, saw a 300 percent increase in pickups one day after the election. USA Today has also enjoyed an online traffic spike. Two of its 10 most read articles published in 2016 were also about the president.
The Washington Post, for its part, has seen nothing but growth in traffic since the election. On Nov. 14, 2016, for example, the D.C.-based paper declared proudly, “The Washington Post records nearly 100 million visitors in October, greatly exceeding previous traffic records.” It has published a lot of articles with titles like this.
The New Yorker broke all of its records in January, posting a ridiculous 230 percent increase in subscriptions. The Atlantic broke its best-ever record in November, and then broke it again in December by doubling that number. Vanity Fair broke its record in a single day in December after it found itself on the receiving end of Trump criticism.
Fox News, MSNBC and CNN have also been the beneficiaries of Trump’s bid for the White House. In fact, of all the cable channels, they have benefitted the most, according to Nielsen data.
Trump has been so good for business, in fact, that CNN, MSNBC and Fox say they’re attracting business from organizations that don’t normally purchase advertising on news programs.
In March, Fox News had “the best quarter in cable news history for 24 hour viewership,” Politico noted.
MSNBC’s ratings did particularly well, and CNN said it had its most watched quarter in more than a decade among the key 25-54 demo and total viewers, the report noted.
It’s a plain fact that the press has benefitted enormously from Trump’s candidacy.
“It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” CBS executive chairman Leslie Moonves stated candidly in 2016.
His remarks, which were made during a Morgan Stanley conference, came in reference to Trump’s candidacy. Moonves even called Trump’s place in the election a “good thing.”
Though he claims now he was just kidding (sure), Moonves clearly was not wrong about the Trump benefit.
“Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now?” he continued. “The money’s rolling in and this is fun. I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.”
Things have only gotten better for the press since Moonves spoke to that conference in 2016. Newsrooms may hate the president now, but they’ll definitely miss him when he’s gone.
