The left-wing media were falling over themselves to report on the Nielsen ratings of both the Democrat and Republican conventions that took place over the past two weeks.
But they all got it wrong.
“Trump’s Republican National Convention was a ratings flop,” reported Salon on Saturday.
“Democrats Beat Republicans In Convention Television Ratings” was the headline at NPR. “The GOP lost the TV ratings race this week, as prime time viewership for the Republican National Convention was consistently below figures for the Democratic party’s virtual convention last week, according to figures released by Nielsen.”
“Biden hits Trump where it hurts: in the convention speech ratings,” CNN’s Brian Stelter triumphantly declared in his headline.
“President Trump’s Thursday night convention speech making the case for his reelection was lower-rated than his challenger Joe Biden’s speech one week ago, according to overnight Nielsen ratings,” Stelter began. “About 23.8 million viewers watched coverage of Trump’s RNC address across thirteen cable and broadcast networks, down from 24.6 million viewers who watched Biden’s DNC address on twelve of those same networks.”
“The Democratic convention was also higher-rated than the Republican convention overall when the audience for all four days is tallied up,” he added. You could almost hear the thrill going up Stelter’s leg.
The media wants you to believe that more people tuned into Joe Biden’s convention than Donald Trump’s. According to the media narrative, Biden’s alleged ratings win may not be a reliable predictor for voting, but it certainly means enthusiasm for Joe Biden has eclipsed enthusiasm for President Trump.
Even Brian Stelter noted, “Nielsen’s data sets count traditional TV viewership across America but largely leave out streaming and other digital forms of engagement, so the picture is incomplete.”
It makes sense that Stelter and others in the media didn’t wait for the complete picture, because the complete picture showed that a lot more people tuned into the Republican National Convention than the Democratic National Convention.
A lot more.
Across television and online streaming, the Republican National Convention got 147.9 million total viewers from Monday through Thursday, while Democratic National Convention got 122 million total viewers, according to figures released by both campaigns.
Now, I’m not a math genius, but I’m pretty sure 147.9 million is bigger than 122 million.
The Trump campaign also raised $76 million during its convention, compared to the $70 million the Biden campaign raised during its convention.
The national press secretary for the Biden campaign, T.J. Ducklo, tweeted, “I always forget, does @realDonaldTrump care about his television ratings? Or is that not something he cares about?”
“Turns out Americans aren’t really into the dark and dystopian view of the country that Donald Trump is presiding over as president,” Ducklo tweeted later.
Well, that’s embarrassing. I guess Americans actually enjoyed the positive and patriotic view of the country during the RNC more than the overly dark and negative view presented by the Democrats during their convention.
Maybe the Biden campaign should have delayed celebrating its “victory” in the ratings race until all the numbers came out.
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Matt Margolis is the author of the new book Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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