The attention and pressure surrounding a presidential election only come once every four years. But, reports Variety, the election of Donald Trump may be so surprising and unprecedented that many TV-news executives believe the public’s attention may stay at or near the same intensity level at which it has buzzed for the past several months.
“We are in the biggest bull market in cable-news history,” said Bill Hemmer, the veteran Fox News anchor who previously spent a decade at CNN. “Conventional wisdom would suggest that everyone goes back to their lives on Wednesday, and I can’t see that happening.” Little wonder, then, that Fox News in the last few days unveiled a new TV studio valued at around $30 million.
To be sure, Hemmer’s sentiment runs against the tide.
Viewership often declines in the year after a presidential election. In 2013, for example, the year after the networks chronicled the battle for the White House between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, the combined median prime-time viewership of CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC dropped 11% to about 3 million, according to data from Pew Research Center.
And yet, among top executives in TV newsrooms and those who work in the trenches, there is a palpable sense viewers may tune in for more. Yes, ratings are likely to fall – but perhaps not as much as they normally do after an election cycle.
There’s reason to want the fascination with the headlines to continue. At both 21st Century Fox and Time Warner, Fox News Channel and CNN have been integral to increases in revenue and operating income this year. The election cycle is expected to boost CNN’s overall ad sales by 14.4% in 2016, according to market-research firm SNL Kagan, compared with 11.2% in 2015. Fox News Channel’s ad revenue is projected to rise 9.8% this year, compared with 7.3% in 2015. And MSNBC’s ad revenue is expected to grow 26.4%, Kagan said, compared with just 5.6% the year before.
Ad dollars are also soaring at the broadcast-TV networks’ evening-news programs. In the first six months of 2016, advertisers earmarked nearly $290 million for NBC’s “NBC Nightly News,” ABC’s “World News Tonight” and CBS’ “CBS Evening News,” according to data from Kantar, a tracker of ad spending. Compare that with the $193.4 million spent on the shows in the first six months of last year – or even the $243.9 million spent during the 2012 White House race. The figures mean Lester Holt, David Muir and Scott Pelley won their shows almost 50% more in the first half of this year compared with the same 2015 period, and about 19% more than the first half of 2012.
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